Israeli police clashed with Palestinian youths in several locations in east Jerusalem today, but prayers passed off relatively quietly after Israel reopened the flashpoint Temple Mount compound, site of al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest place.
Palestinian groups had declared a "day of rage" in response to the killing by an Israeli police swat team of Moataz Hejazi (32), an Islamic Jihad member who had shot and seriously wounded Yehuda Glick, a leading Israeli advocate of the right of Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, the sight of two ancient Jewish temples.
Israel, fearing a further upsurge of violence, sent some 3,000 police to the narrow alleyways of Jerusalem’s old city, where the Temple Mount is located, and to Palestinian neighbourhoods throughout the capital.
Entry to today’s Temple Mount prayers for men was limited to those aged over 50.
Police forced back a small group of young Palestinians who tried to storm through a police cordon at one of the compound’s entrances.
Eight Palestinians were wounded when police opened fire to disperse protesters at the Qalandia crossing between Jerusalem and the West Bank after a march organised by the Islamist Hamas group.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas sent an urgent message to the United States asking the administration to stop "Israeli escalations" in east Jerusalem. He warned against what he termed "incursions by extremist settlers" into the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount.
Hamas called for West Bank Palestinians to take to the streets to defend the Jerusalem holy site and “not to abandon the Jerusalemites in the battle that is taking place in the holy city”.
Despite four months of almost daily clashes in Palestinian neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, the West Bank has remained relatively quiet, with only sporadic outbursts of violence.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned that the current wave of violence may last a long time and Israel's immediate aim was to "lower the flames".
Public security minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said he did not believe the violence would develop into an all-out intifada, or popular uprising.
“I’ve seen several intifadas and it doesn’t seem to me to be heading that way at the moment,” he said. “We’ll continue to safeguard Jerusalem.”
Mr Hejazi was buried outside Jerusalem's old city late on Thursday night with a heavy police presence. Relatives claimed he was shot in cold blood, denying Israeli claims that he had opened fire on police who had surrounded his east Jerusalem home a few hours after the shooting of Mr Glick.
A spokesman for Mr Netanyahu dismissed Arab anger over the decision to close the Temple Mount on Thursday, saying the emergency measure was necessary “to prevent riots and escalation, as well as to restore calm and the status quo to the holy places”.
United States secretary of state John Kerry called for Israel to maintain the status quo on the Temple Mount.
Any change, he said in a statement, would be “provocative and dangerous”.
