TEMPO.CO, Jerusalem/Ankara - Saudi Arabia's Council of Muslim Scholars condemned Israel's recent violations against the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, reports said Wednesday, July, 2015.
"Israeli aggression against Muslim worshippers and the infringements that occurred in the sacred mosque... provoke Muslims and constitute severe violations of basic human rights," the Middle East Monitor quoted the council’s statement.
Earlier this week, masked rock-throwing Palestinians and Israeli police using stun grenades clashed on Sunday at al-Aqsa mosque plaza, on the annual Jewish day of mourning for Jerusalem's two destroyed Biblical temples.
The BBC had reported on Sunday that the Palestinians are said to have barricaded themselves inside the mosque and thrown stones at police, who moved in to stop them.
No serious injuries were reported at the site, which lies in the Israeli-occupied walled Old City and is revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount where two temples once stood.
A police spokeswoman said Palestinians had prepared makeshift barricades and used rocks, metal bars and flares to attack police who came to dismantle them, Reuters reported on Sunday.
Violence at the site has flared in the past year as Palestinians have been riled by visits by non-Muslims, including ultranationalist Jews, to the compound.
Police used stun grenades to push protesters back into the mosque and stepped inside its entrance way to close its main doors, which the spokeswoman said had been jammed open by rock-throwers.
NZM
