Jerusalem,-Palestinians ended a boycott and entered a sensitive Jerusalem holy site for the first time in two weeks today after Israel removed controversial security measures there, potentially ending a crisis that sparked deadly unrest.<\/p>\n
AFP journalists saw thousands of worshippers streaming into the Haram al-Sharif compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, for afternoon prayers. The site includes the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.<\/p>\n
A last-minute confrontation threatened to derail the planned end of the boycott as Israeli police were keeping one of the gates leading to the holy site closed.<\/p>\n
The gate is where two Israeli policemen were killed on July 14, prompting the new security measures.<\/p>\n
Police later opened the gate and Palestinians stuck to their plan to end the boycott.<\/p>\n
A tense standoff had been underway between Israel and Muslim worshippers at the holy site despite the removal of metal detectors on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Newly installed railings and scaffolding where cameras were previously mounted were also cleared early Thursday, after which police said all new security measures had now been removed.<\/p>\n
Muslims had refused to enter the compound and prayed in the streets outside after Israel installed the new security measures. Palestinians viewed the move as Israel asserting further control.<\/p>\n
In response to the removal of the security measures, Muslim authorities called on worshippers to return.<\/p>\n
Israeli authorities said the metal detectors were needed because the July 14 attackers smuggled guns into the compound and emerged from it to attack the officers.<\/p>\n
Deadly unrest erupted in the days after the new measures were introduced, with clashes breaking out around the compound and in the occupied West Bank, leaving five Palestinians dead.<\/p>\n
A Palestinian also broke into a home in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank last week and stabbed four Israelis, killing three of them.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, clashes erupted between the Israeli police and Palestinians at the sensitive holy site today as Muslim worshippers entered to end a boycott of the compound. The Palestinian Red Crescent reported 46 persons wounded both inside the Haram al-Sharif compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, and in the immediate area. The reasons for the clashes inside the compound were not immediately clear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jerusalem,-Palestinians ended a boycott and entered a sensitive Jerusalem holy site for the first time in two weeks today after Israel removed controversial security measures there, potentially ending a crisis that sparked deadly unrest. AFP journalists saw thousands of worshippers streaming into the Haram al-Sharif compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, for afternoon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1330,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1331,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions\/1331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}