SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Israeli police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades towards rock-hurting Palestinian youth at Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday amid growing anger over the potential eviction of Palestinians from homes on land claimed by Jewish settlers.
Thousands of Palestinians faced off with several hundred Israeli police in riot gear in Islam’s third-holiest site and around East Jerusalem, according to Reuters.
At least 205 Palestinians and 17 Israeli officers were injured in the night-time clashes, Reuters cited Palestinian medics and Israeli police as saying.
Clashes erupted as numerous Palestinian families face eviction in a long-running legal case in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah.
Sheikh Jarrah’s residents are overwhelmingly Palestinian, but the neighborhood also contains a site revered by religious Jews as the tomb of an ancient high priest, Simon the Just.
The United States and the United Nations called for calm and restraint, while the European Union and Jordan have voiced alarm at the possible evictions.
The spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the evictions, “if ordered and implemented, would violate Israel’s obligations under international law” on East Jerusalem territory it captured and occupied, along with the West Bank, from neighboring Jordan in 1967.
“We call on Israel to immediately halt all forced evictions, including those in Sheikh Jarrah, and to cease any activity that would further contribute to a coercive environment and lead to a risk of forcible transfer,” spokesman Rupert Colville said on Friday.
The United States was “deeply concerned about the heightened tensions in Jerusalem,” said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter.
“As we head into a sensitive period in the days ahead, it will be critical for all sides to ensure calm and act responsibly to deescalate tensions and avoid violent confrontation,” Porter said.
The European Union, Jordan and the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council have expressed alarm at the potential evictions.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Jordan had given the Palestinian Authority documents that he said showed the Sheikh Jarrah Palestinians were the “legitimate owners” of their homes.
Israel’s “provocative steps in occupied Jerusalem and violation of Palestinian rights, including the rights of the people of Sheikh Jarrah in their homes, is playing with fire,” Safadi said in a foreign ministry statement on Twitter.
