Al-Aqsa Mosque raid: How a night of worship became a night of Israeli brutality
Palestinian witnesses describe
how the beatings and violence Israeli forces meted out on worshippers
was far worse than the online footage shows
Israeli police detain a Palestinian after raiding Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem on 4 April (Anadolu Agency)
The reality, said Abdullah Jaber, a teenager from Jerusalem who was
assaulted in the prayer hall and detained by Israeli forces on Tuesday
night, was much, much worse.
“They kept us on the ground, handcuffed, for a long time, and anyone
who raised his head was hit with a gun,” Jaber told Middle East Eye.
“My leg hurt, so I told a soldier about it, but he hit me on my chest and cursed me.”
Speaking after his release, Jaber described the terrifying moment the Israelis forced their way into the holy site in occupied East Jerusalem, where Palestinians were practising the contemplative prayer of Itikaf.
Stun grenades and teargas were fired into the thousand-year-old
building, before soldiers threw Palestinians to the ground, stamped on
them, and bound their hands forcefully behind their backs.
Jaber said the beatings did not stop once they were removed from the
prayer hall. The Israelis hit the detained Palestinians with batons as
they led them out of the hall and crammed them into a space near the
mosque. Around 400 Palestinians were detained on Tuesday night.
Even after they were taken to the police station, the assaults and
insults continued, Jaber said. Now free, the teenager is nonetheless
shaken and bruised after a night of worship became a night of brutality.
Many of the detainees were forced to sign papers banning them from Al-Aqsa Mosque for a week, as a condition of their release.
Mothers feared for their sons
For mothers of young men like Jaber who were caught up in the assault, Tuesday night was fraught with anxiety and tension.
Sanaa Al-Rajabi was in constant contact with her son Ammar as the
Israelis stormed the mosque - until the line went dead. He’d been
arrested and taken to an interrogation centre with scores of other
worshippers.
“I was worried to death for my son. At first, the worshippers were in
Al-Qibli prayer hall and refused to leave it; then the brutal assault
began on them by dozens of Israeli police officers, using all forms of
repression,” she told MEE.
'The last thing he told me was that the soldiers sprayed them with
teargas inside the prayer hall and beat them with rifles and metal
chairs'
– Sanaa Al-Rajabi, mother of a detained worshipper
“Sound bombs and teargas were fired at them while they were trapped
inside the prayer hall, then the rubber bullets that hit many of them.”
Israeli forces began removing Palestinians from Al-Aqsa's courtyards
at around 10pm. Earlier, tens of thousands had attended Taraweeh
prayers, as is customary during Ramadan, and several people stayed
behind to practise Itikaf.
Itikaf is a non-mandatory religious practice that is common in
Ramadan, whereby worshippers stay inside mosques overnight to pray,
reflect and recite the Quran.
While Israel has refused to allow Palestinians to perform Itikaf this
year and cleared people from the mosque after Taraweeh prayers, it had
not used such excessive violence before Tuesday's assault.
The Jewish holiday of Passover began on Wednesday, where Jewish Israelis are expected to gather at the Western Wall beside Al-Aqsa.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society and local media said dozens of
Palestinians were injured in the crackdown. Medics were denied access to
those hurt and one was assaulted outside the mosque.
While the Israeli violence escalated, cries for help rang out over
Jerusalem from minarets. Palestinians gathered in protest across the
occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian town of Umm
al-Fahm in northern Israel. Rockets were fired from Gaza, prompting Israeli airstrikes on the besieged enclave.
As the situation deteriorated in the mosque, Rajabi and other
Palestinians headed to Al-Aqsa, trying to protect their loved ones and
the holy site itself, but they were met with stun grenades and batons at
one of the mosque’s gates.
Palestinian medics help women caught up in the Israeli assault on Al-Aqsa Mosque (Anadolu Agency)
Rajabi hasn’t heard anything from Ammar since last night. He’s still
believed to be in Israeli custody, but his mother was able to identify
him in the violent footage from the mosque.
“The last thing he told me was that the soldiers sprayed them with
teargas inside the prayer hall and beat them with rifles and metal
chairs. Then they handcuffed them and took them outside,” she said.
On Wednesday morning, many of the detainees’ families gathered
outside Jerusalem’s Atarot police station. Israeli police tried to
barter with the relatives for their release, witnesses said.
Khalid Zabarqa, a lawyer representing some of the detained
worshippers, told MEE that he expects most of the Palestinians to be
released but some may be transferred elsewhere.
“They transferred them to this centre in buses and then numbered
them,” he said, showing how the Palestinians were marked by pen on their
shoulders. “This is something new.”