Page 49 - 072917

Groton Daily Independent
Saturday, July 29, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 029 ~ 49 of 67
Firas Dibs, an of cial from Waqf, said earlier that tens of thousands attended Friday prayers.
The prayers ended without incident, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. There were some sporadic, low- level scuf es between Palestinians and Israeli forces nearby, but nothing on the scale of recent violence.
Police had barred men under 50 from the Jerusalem site during the day and braced for violence following security assessments indicting Pales- tinians had planned protests there. There were no restrictions on women. Israeli police lifted the age restrictions and other measures Friday night.
Muslims only returned to the site on Thursday — after about two weeks
of praying in the streets nearby to
protest the new security measures. TheyhadclaimedIsraelwastrying toexpanditscontroloverthesite. Israeldeniedtheallegations,insisting
the measures were meant to prevent
more attacks and pointed to similar measures at sensitive sites around the world.
Palestinians pray outside the Damascus Gate in Jerusa- lem’s Old City Friday, July 28, 2017. Muslim prayers at a major Jerusalem shrine ended peacefully Israeli police said Friday but violence continued in the West Bank where a Palestinianwaskilledattackingsoldiersasforceswereon highalertfollowingtwoweeksofviolenceoverthesacred site,holytobothMuslimsandJews.(APPhoto/TsafrirAbayov)
Five Palestinians have died in the past week and scores were wounded in violent clashes with Israeli security forces over the holy site.
The fate of the shrine is an emotional issue at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian con ict. Even the small- est perceived change to delicate arrangements there can increase tensions.
Jews revere the hilltop compound as the Temple Mount, site of the two Jewish biblical temples. It is the holiest site in Judaism and the nearby Western Wall, a remnant of one of the temples, is the holiest place where Jews can pray.
The walled compound is home to both the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. It is Islam’s third-holiest site after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. Muslims believe the site marks the spot where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.
Jordan is the custodian of the Muslim shrine in Jerusalem and was involved in behind-the-scenes nego- tiations to end the latest escalation. But there has been growing outrage in the kingdom over the crisis at the shrine and over a deadly altercation at the Israeli Embassy compound in Amman earlier this week. Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel remains deeply unpopular in the kingdom.
King Abdullah II of Jordan scolded Netanyahu’s handling of the incident, in which an Israeli guard shot and killed two people after he was attacked by one of them with a screwdriver.
Netanyahu praised the guard and gave him a warm personal welcome when he returned to Israel, fol- lowing a diplomatic standoff this week.
Jordan’s attorney general on Friday led murder charges against the guard and hundreds of Jordanians marched in Amman, chanting, “Death to Israel.”
Israel’s foreign ministry said Friday night it is probing the incident and will update Jordan on developments. Netanyahu has been trying to halt the unrest while not appearing to his hard-line base as caving into