250,000 Muslims offer 4th Ramadan Friday prayer at Al-Aqsa

JERUSALEM

Nearly a quarter million Palestinians performed the fourth Friday prayers of the month of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, according to a statement by the Islamic Endowments Department in Jerusalem.

Palestinians started early this morning to move toward the holy mosque to avoid crowds at the Israeli checkpoints.

The Israeli police said in a statement that it deployed some 2,000 Israeli police personnel in East Jerusalem and its Old City area.

The Israeli army estimated that nearly 72,000 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank crossed the Israeli checkpoints to Jerusalem to mark the Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque guards and volunteers have also been deployed in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa to receive the worshippers and organize their prayers. Medical teams were also dispatched to provide health assistance to worshippers.

Tensions escalated across Palestinian territories after Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in East Jerusalem and forcibly removed worshippers on April 5 and 6.

The Israeli raids on the mosque triggered rocket fires from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, with Israel retaliating with airstrikes.

Palestinians accuse Israel of systematically working to Judaize East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, and obliterate its Arab and Islamic identity.

For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world's third-holiest site. Jews, for their part, call the area the Temple Mount, saying it was the site of two ancient Jewish temples.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar