Israeli police shut a path resulting in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound after pictures had been fired on Saturday within the Old City of Jerusalem.

Mahmoud Illean/AP

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Mahmoud Illean/AP

Israeli police shut a path resulting in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound after pictures had been fired on Saturday within the Old City of Jerusalem.

Mahmoud Illean/AP

JERUSALEM — Israeli police shot and killed a person who they alleged tried to grab an officer’s gun at an entrance to a Jerusalem holy web site early Saturday, elevating fears of additional violence throughout a time of heightened tensions at the flashpoint compound.

Later Saturday, the Israeli navy stated a Palestinian driver rammed his car into a bunch of Israelis within the occupied West Bank. Israeli medics stated three individuals had been wounded, two severely, and the alleged attacker was shot lifeless.

In Jerusalem’s police capturing, Palestinian worshippers on the entrance to the positioning on Saturday morning had a distinct account, saying that police shot the person a minimum of 10 occasions after he tried to forestall them from harassing a girl who was on her approach to the holy compound, dwelling to Al-Aqsa Mosque within the coronary heart of Jerusalem’s Old City — the third holiest shrine in Islam. The compound, revered by Jews because the Temple Mount, can be probably the most sacred web site in Judaism.

The police stated the slain man was 26-year-old Mohammed Alasibi from Hura, a Bedouin Arab village in southern Israel. The village council known as for a radical investigation of his killing and a normal strike Saturday in protest.

Hours after the incident, the muddy stone alleyway resulting in Al-Aqsa Mosque was nonetheless stained with blood. Alasibi’s household stated he was a doctor who had not too long ago handed his exams and earned his M.D. in Romania. He returned to his hometown a month in the past, his cousin stated, and was caring for his sick father as he labored to get licensed in Israel.

“He is a polite, kind man from a family of doctors who was going to Al-Aqsa for spiritual reasons,” his cousin Fahad Alasibi stated. “If you want us to believe that he tried to attack police, then show us the security footage.”

A police spokesperson pushed again on Palestinian accounts, insisting there was no lady strolling to the compound at midnight as a result of the complicated was closed to guests below an settlement with an Islamic belief known as the Waqf managed by Jordan.

Nonetheless, just a few dozen individuals have been making an attempt to sleep on the mosque in a single day through the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, prompting Israeli police to intervene and attempt to evict the worshippers.

The police spokesperson stated Alasibi first aroused suspicion strolling towards the shuttered compound. After being stopped for questioning, the spokesperson stated Alasibi jumped on one of many officers and grabbed his gun, managing to fireplace two bullets towards policemen because the officer struggled to restrain him. Police described the incident as an tried terrorist assault and stated they shot and killed him in self-defense. No officers had been injured. The spokesperson stated there was no digital camera on the interior wall of the compound that might have captured the incident.

Palestinian worshippers on the compound Saturday disagreed. Noureddine, a 17-year-old who lived within the neighborhood and declined to offer his final title for worry of reprisals, stated he noticed Alasibi confront police who had stopped a feminine worshipper on her approach to Al-Aqsa Mosque. Alasibi’s relationship to the lady was not clear. He stated some form of disagreement broke out between Alasibi and the officers earlier than he heard a dozen pictures ring out.

“Nothing could justify that many shots,” he stated, pointing to chaotic footage he filmed that confirmed Palestinian distributors and worshippers screaming on the sound of bullets being fired in fast succession. “They were fired at close range.”

His cousin Fahad stated Alasibi was anxious about making the journey from Israel’s Negev desert to Al-Aqsa as a result of his ailing father relied on him. “But he went because praying there during Ramadan means a lot to him,” he stated.

The metropolis’s contested compound has been a spotlight for clashes previously, significantly in occasions of turmoil in Israel and the West Bank. This yr, as violence surges within the occupied territory below probably the most right-wing authorities in Israeli historical past, fears of an escalation in Jerusalem have mounted with the beginning of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Israeli police have boosted their forces as tens of hundreds of Muslim worshippers flock to Al-Aqsa Mosque for prayers.

On Friday, greater than 200,000 Palestinians gathered on the compound for midday prayers, which handed peacefully.

Noureddine stated police pressured Palestinian distributors and worshippers out of the world after the incident, beating him and others with batons. Israeli police briefly closed the positioning earlier than reopening it for daybreak prayers.

Confrontations on the hilltop compound have triggered wider violence within the area previously. Clashes on the web site in May 2021 helped gas the outbreak of a bloody 11-day struggle between Israel and Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers.

This yr’s convergence of Ramadan with the Jewish vacation of Passover might enhance the potential of friction because the Old City hosts an enormous inflow of pilgrims.

For the previous yr, Israeli-Palestinian combating has surged within the occupied West Bank. At least 86 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli or settler gunfire this yr, based on an Associated Press tally. Palestinian assaults towards Israelis have killed 15 individuals in the identical interval. Israel says most of these killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting police incursions and folks not concerned within the confrontations have additionally been killed.