JERUSALEM — Israeli police shot and killed an Arab man Saturday morning in front of the entrance to Jerusalem’s most famous holy site, in an episode that threatened to escalate tensions in the city at a time that was already unstable. fine.
Police said in a statement that officers arrested the man in a separate incident, before he arrested and fired a police officer’s gun, prompting them to kill him in self-defense. Police described the man as a terrorist.
In a conflicting account, the Palestinian media reported that he was killed in an altercation after he intervened to stop the assault of an Arab woman. Neither version could be immediately authenticated.
The shooting happened on the doorstep of the Aqsa Mosque complex, a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims. The site has been used as a mosque for over a millennium but is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, because it was the location of two ancient Jewish temples in antiquity.
The man killed was identified by police as a 26-year-old man from Hura, an Arab town in southern Israel.
His shooting threatens to spark a new wave of unrest in a site both Israelis and Palestinians consider to be. an essential part of their national story. Clashes are frequent there at times of heightened tension in the region — particularly during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began a week and a half ago.
Venue confrontations in May 2021 contribute to the outbreak about the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Muslim militia that controls the Gaza Strip.
For months, diplomats and officials have warned of the possibility of another outbreak at the complex during this year’s Passover and Ramadan, which next week will converge, the second of three. decade. Overlapping festivals will bring more Jews and Muslims to the site than usual, increasing the risk of confrontation — especially if police continue to allow Jewish activists to pray there, contrary to decades of convention.
Israel captured the site from Jordan during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later annexed it. For years, Israeli authorities prevented Jews from praying there, for fear of angering Muslims. But in recent years, the police have started tacitly allowedaroused Palestinian resentment.
Jews consider it the holiest place in Judaism, while Muslims believe it is the place where the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.
