Rocks piled in a Temple Mount mosque by Palestinian rioters. (Social media via TPS)
The Palestinians use the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, as a means to incite violence against Israel, and have spread malicious lies about supposed Israeli intentions to somehow alter the status of the Temple Mount or even destroy the mosques situated there.
After months of relative quiet, Palestinians have resorted again to using extreme violence against Israelis on the Temple Mount.
For the second consecutive day, Palestinian rioters, some of them masked, threw rocks at Jewish worshipers and launched fireworks at police as they attempted to block Jews from ascending the Temple Mount on Monday.
The riots broke out shortly after Jewish visitors were admitted onto the Temple Mount by Israeli police, as is the daily routine.
Israeli police pushed back the rioters, who used the mosques on the Temple Mount as cover from which they continued to launch their assault.
The police shut the mosques’ doors, thus preventing a further escalation of the violence.
Photos posted on social media show that the attack was premeditated, and that the rioters accumulated rocks, bricks and other objects inside the mosques to throw at Israeli forces.
Jews were admitted by police onto the Temple Mount despite the rioting, albeit in a limited fashion and for short periods of time.
The rioters are apparently protesting the fact the Jews entered the Temple Mount during the Muslim months of Ramadan, although they have previously rioted against the presence of Jews at the holy site at any time.
The rioting continued even after visits by Jews on the holy site had concluded.
The police stated it would not tolerate the violence and would use all the means at its disposal to prevent a further intensification of the rioting.
The Palestinians use the Temple Mount, a sensitive holy site, as a means to incite violence against Israel, and have spread malicious lies about supposed Israeli intentions to somehow alter the status of the Temple Mount or even destroy the mosques situated there.
The latest wave of Palestinian terror attacks, which has claimed the lives of 37 people and wounded hundreds, was sparked in September by violence on the Temple Mount that broke out because of rumors spread by the Palestinian leadership that Israel intended to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Israel has repeatedly maintained that it has no intention to alter the status quo at the holy site.
By: Max Gelber, United with Israel