Tensions in Jerusalem are simmering after Israel responded to rocket assaults by attacking targets in Syria

JERUSALEM — Israel’s army stated it attacked targets in Syria on Sunday after uncommon missiles had been fired from its northeastern neighbor as tensions simmered at a risky Jerusalem shrine necessary to each Jewish and Muslim worshipers.

The Israel Protection Forces stated in a press release fighter jets hit targets together with “army radar programs and artillery posts” and “a army compound of the Fourth Division of the Syrian Armed Forces”. This adopted assaults on rocket launchers fired into Israeli territory, the assertion stated.

In separate tweets, the IDF stated six rockets had been fired at Israel in two separate batches by Syria and three had been intercepted.

One of many rockets landed within the Israeli-held Golan Heights within the south, the IDF stated. The world borders Syria, which considers the territory as its personal. Captured by Israel from Syria in the course of the 1967 Six-Day Warfare, it has been annexed since 1981. It’s thought of an occupied territory below worldwide regulation.

No injury or casualties had been reported on Israeli territory, and it was unclear if there have been any casualties in Syria.

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s protection minister, later tweeted that he had ordered the Gaza crossing to be closed “till the top of the Jewish vacation of Passover,” which ends on Wednesday. “IDF forces will step up Israeli police actions wherever mandatory,” he stated.

His feedback got here after Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV quoted the Al-Quds Brigade, a militia that differs from the bigger armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad with an analogous title, as saying it fired the rockets at itself to avenge the police assault on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, in line with the Related Press. NBC Information has not been in a position to independently confirm this.

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The strikes on the Christian vacation of Easter got here hours earlier than hundreds of Jewish worshipers gathered at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, the holiest place the place Jews can pray, for a priestly blessing service for Passover.

Above the Western Wall, a whole lot of Palestinians prayed as a part of celebrations in the course of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. A whole bunch of Jews additionally visited the compound below heavy police guard.

The place has been on the heart of violent scenes in current days, as Muslim worshipers making an attempt to sleep on the mosque had been forcibly eliminated by Israeli police, who beat worshipers – together with ladies and kids – with batons, chairs and weapons and with Teenagers fired stun weapons, who threw again firecrackers.

Israeli authorities usually solely permit Palestinian worshipers to remain in a single day on the mosque over the last 10 days of Ramadan, and often step in to evict members who keep in a single day outdoors of this era.

Positioned on a hilltop sacred to each Jews and Muslims, the location recognized to Jews because the Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest web site, revered as the location of Biblical Jewish temples. Additionally it is the third holiest web site in Islam.

Conflicting claims to the territory have beforehand usually escalated into violence, most not too long ago in an 11-day warfare between Israel and Hamas in 2021, through which each side claimed victory.

Militant teams in Lebanon and Gaza responded with rockets in response to raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque final week, and Israel launched a wave of airstrikes into Lebanon and the Gaza Strip early Friday, after dozens of rockets hit the north of the nation the day earlier than had met.

Neither group claimed accountability for the rocket fireplace from Lebanon, though Israel blamed Hamas and stated it was investigating the involvement of Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political celebration and militant group in Lebanon that additionally has ties to Iran.

Elsewhere, a big funeral service was held on Sunday for Aaed Azzam Salim, 20, who was shot lifeless throughout clashes within the West Financial institution metropolis of Azzun.

The Saturday of his loss of life got here lower than 24 hours after an Italian vacationer was killed in a automobile ramming and two British-Israeli sisters had been shot lifeless and their mom significantly injured in an assault in Tel Aviv on Friday in Tel Aviv.

In keeping with the Palestinian Ministry of Well being, 95 Palestinians have died because the starting of this 12 months, together with 17 kids.

Lawahez Jabari reported from Jerusalem and Leila Sackur from London.

Lawahez Jabari is a producer from Tel Aviv. She has been coping with the Center East battle for greater than a decade – on each the Israeli and the Palestinian aspect.

Related Press contributed.

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