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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Only men over 50 pray at Aqsa mosque amid tight security |
| 2014-11-01 |
| [ARABNEWS] Moslem men over 50 prayed at the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday amid intense security, a day after Israel closed all access to the sacred compound for the first time in more than a decade following violence on the streets. More than 1,000 Israeli police were deployed around the Old City's cobbled streets and the ancient gates that lead to Al Aqsa, a spokeswoman said, in addition to undercover anti-riot units and observation balloons hovering in the sky. Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... denounced Thursday's closure of the site as "tantamount to a declaration of war" and his political party called for a "day of rage" in protest at the move, prompting heightened security throughout the city. Worshippers wanting to enter the ornate marble-and-stone compound, which contains the golden Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam, queued behind blue barricades to show their identification papers to the police. More than 4,000 people attended midday prayers, police said. There were a few isolated disturbances, including firecrackers being set off and an attempt by a group of young Paleostinian men to break through the police cordon, but no serious violence. Israeli authorities shut all access to Al Aqsa after the shooting of Yehuda Glick, a far-right religious activist who has led a campaign for Jews to be allowed to pray at the site, which they refer to as Temple Mount. Glick, 48, was shot as he left a conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday. The man suspected of shooting him, a Paleostinian from the neighborhood of Abu Tor in the eastern, mainly Arab side of the city, was rubbed out by Israeli forces before dawn on Thursday, following an exchange of gunfire. Locals said it was the first time all access to Al Aqsa had been banned since the second Intifada, or Paleostinian uprising, erupted in 2000. But Jordanian authorities, who are responsible for administering the site, said it was the first full closure of the compound since the 1967 Middle East war. |
| Posted by:Fred |