Clashes have broken out after Israeli police entered the Temple Mount holy site in Jerusalem, with medics saying at least 59 Palestinians have been wounded.
Police entered the compound in large numbers shotly before dawn, said the administrators of the site — also known as Al Aqsa — as thousands of worshippers gathered at the mosque for early morning prayers two weeks into the holy month of Ramadan.
In a statement, police said that around two hours earlier, dozens of young people began to march in the area, carrying flags of both Hamas as well as Palestine.
They also threw stones and fireworks and began piling up rocks and other objects to prepare for further clashes, the authorities said.
“Police were forced to enter the grounds to disperse the crowd and remove the stones and rocks, in order to prevent further violence,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Police said that the group pelted stones during morning prayers, but that police only went in to disperse the group after prayers ended.
The group then pelted stones at the Western Wall, which is located below the Temple Mount compound, prompting officers to move to enter the site, police said.
Videos of the clashes being shared online appeared to show worshippers barricading themselves inside the Al Aqsa mosque itself amid what appeared to be clouds of tear gas. Other footage showed Palestinians hurling rocks and police firing tear gas and stun grenades.
The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service said it evacuated 59 wounded people to hospitals. The Islamic endowment which manages the site said one of its guards was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet.
The incident on Friday is the latest in a growing wave of violence that has erupted during the holy month of Ramadan, which coincides this year with major Jewish and Christian holidays.
Last year protests and clashes in Jerusalem during Ramadan boiled over into an 11-day war between Israel and Gaza.
In recent weeks tensions have been simmering after a series of attacks by Arab assailants killed 14 people inside Israel, prompting a wave of arrests and military operations in West Bank.
On Monday, Israeli forces said they had shot and killed a Palestinian man near the city of Bethlehem in the West Bank, reported the Associated Press.
The military said it had opened fire at a man throwing a firebomb at an Israeli vehicle driving on a West Bank highway late Sunday.
Three Palestinians have been killed between Sunday and Monday which includes an unarmed woman who was shot and killed at a military checkpoint near Bethlehem.
Security has been heightened both in Israel as well as in the West Bank.
On Thursday Hamas called for an escalation against Israel and urged “hundreds of thousands” to attend Friday prayers in Jerusalem.
“We are declaring a general mobilisation in all places where our people are located. We are calling on the masses to come out in the hundreds of thousands to protect our nation and our mosque,” it said.
Israel’s border police said that security forces are on high alert ahead of Friday prayers.
