Israeli police on Friday moved in on a crowd of mourners at the funeral of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, beating demonstrators with batons and causing pallbearers to briefly drop the casket. The crackdown came during a rare show of Palestinian nationalism in east Jerusalem — the part of the holy city that Israel captured in 1967 and that the Palestinians claim as their capital. Israel says east Jerusalem is part of its capital and has annexed the area in a move that is not internationally recognized. Israel routinely clamps down on any displays of support for Palestinian statehood. Read: Slain Al Jazeera journalist to be laid to rest in Jerusalem Thousands of mourners, some hoisting Palestinian flags and chanting “Palestine, Palestine,” attended the funeral for Abu Akleh, who witnesses say was shot and killed by Israeli forces earlier this week while covering a military raid in the occupied West Bank. “We die for Palestine to live,” the crowd chanted. “Our beloved home.” Later, they sang the Palestinian national anthem. Ahead of the service, dozens of mourners tried to march with the casket on foot out of a hospital to a Catholic church in the nearby Old City.

Israeli police in full riot gear stormed a sensitive Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims on Friday after Palestinian youths hurled stones at a gate where they were stationed.   The renewed violence at the site, which is sacred to Jews and Muslims, came despite Israel temporarily halting Jewish visits, which are seen by the Palestinians as a provocation. Medics said more than two dozen Palestinians were wounded before the clashes subsided hours later. Palestinians and Israeli police have regularly clashed at the site over the last week at a time of heightened tensions following a string of deadly attacks inside Israel and arrest raids in the occupied West Bank. Three rockets have been fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Islamic militant group Hamas. The string of events has raised fears of a repeat of last year, when protests and violence in Jerusalem eventually boiled over, helping to ignite an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, and communal violence in Israel’s mixed cities. Palestinian youths hurled stones toward police at a gate leading into the compound, according to two Palestinian witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns. The police, in full riot gear, then entered the compound, firing rubber bullets and stun grenades. Also Read: Israeli police, Palestinians clash at Jerusalem holy site Israeli police said the Palestinians, some carrying Hamas flags, had begun stockpiling stones and erecting crude fortifications before dawn. The police said that after the rock-throwing began, they waited until after early morning prayers had finished before entering the compound. Some older Palestinians urged the youths to stop throwing rocks but were ignored, as dozens of young masked men hurled stones and fireworks at the police. A tree caught fire near the gate where the clashes began. Police said it was ignited by fireworks thrown by the Palestinians. The violence subsided later in the morning after another group of dozens of Palestinians said they wanted to clean the area ahead of the main weekly prayers midday, which are regularly attended by tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers. The police withdrew to the gate and the stone-throwing stopped. The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said at least 31 Palestinians were wounded, including 14 who were taken to hospitals. A policewoman was hit in the face by a rock and taken for medical treatment, the police said. The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City is the third holiest site in Islam. The sprawling esplanade on which it is built is the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of two Jewish temples in antiquity. It lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and clashes there have often ignited violence elsewhere. Also Read: Israel, Gaza militants trade fire as Mideast tensions mount Palestinians and neighboring Jordan, the custodian of the site, accuse Israel of violating longstanding arrangements by allowing increasingly large numbers of Jews to visit the site under police escort. A longstanding prohibition on Jews praying at the site has eroded in recent years, fueling fears among Palestinians that Israel plans to take over the site or partition it. Israel says it remains committed to the status quo and blames the violence on incitement by Hamas. It says its security forces are acting to remove rock-throwers in order to ensure freedom of worship for Jews and Muslims. Visits by Jewish groups were halted beginning Friday for the last 10 days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as they have been in the past. This year, Ramadan coincided with the week-long Jewish Passover and major Christian holidays, with tens of thousands of people from all three faiths flocking to the Old City after the lifting of most coronavirus restrictions. The Old City is in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally and considers the entire city its capital. The Palestinians seek an independent state in all three territories and view east Jerusalem as their capital.  

 A Hamas militant on Sunday opened fire in Jerusalem’s Old City, killing one Israeli and wounding four others before he was fatally shot by Israeli police. It was not immediately clear whether Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israel’s destruction, had ordered the attack or whether one of its members had acted alone. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has largely adhered to a cease-fire with Israel since an 11-day war last May and shootings attacks inside the Old City are rare. Read: Tens of thousands protest Belgium’s tighter COVID-19 rules Police said the attack took place near an entrance to a contested flashpoint shrine known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Violence surrounding the site, which is considered holy by both faiths, has triggered previous rounds of fighting, including the war last May. Israeli officials said Eliyahu Kay, a 26-year-old immigrant from South Africa, was killed in the shooting. Kay had recently worked at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray. One of the four people wounded was in serious condition. Police identified the attacker as a 42-year-old Palestinian from east Jerusalem. Palestinian media identified him as Fadi Abu Shkhaidem, a teacher at a nearby high school. In Gaza, Hamas praised the attack as a “heroic operation” and said Abu Shkhaidem was one of its members. However, the group stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attack. “Our people’s resistance will continue to be legitimate by all means and tools against the Zionist occupier until our desired goals are achieved and the occupation is expelled from our holy sites and all of our lands,” spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanou said. Read: Microbus-truck collision leaves 3 children dead in Sunamganj Hamas has fought four wars against Israel since it took control of Gaza from the rival Fatah group in 2007. Israel, along with Egypt, have together maintained a stifling blockade on Gaza since the Hamas takeover, causing great harm to the territory’s already weak economy. Since the May war, Israel and Hamas have conducted indirect talks through Egyptian mediators aimed at cementing a long-term cease-fire. Israel, along with the U.S. and European Union, consider Hamas a terrorist group. On Friday, Britain said it also intends to ban Hamas as a terrorist group and would no longer differentiate between its political and military wings. Israel’s figurehead president, Isaac Herzog, called on other countries to follow suit as he landed in Britain on Sunday for an official visit. “The fact the terrorist was from Hamas ‘political wing’ compels the international community to recognise it as a terror group,” Herzog tweeted. Dimiter Tzantchev, the EU ambassador-designate to Israel, condemned “this senseless attack against civilians. Violence is never the answer.” Read: ‘Some fatalities’ after SUV speeds into Christmas parade The U.S. State Department issued a statement condemning the attack and noted in a separate security alert that U.S government employees and their family members have been advised to avoid the Old City until further notice. Sunday’s incident was the second of its kind in Jerusalem’s historic Old City in recent days. On Wednesday, a Palestinian teen was fatally shot after stabbing two Israeli border police. Palestinians have carried out dozens of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks targeting Israeli civilians and security personnel in recent years. Palestinians and rights groups contend some of the alleged car-rammings were accidents and accuse Israel of using excessive force. But shootings around Jerusalem’s Old City and its holy sites are relatively rare, and Israel maintains a sizeable security presence in the area. Israel captured east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its Christian, Muslim and Jewish holy sites, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. It later annexed east Jerusalem in a move unrecognized by most of the international community. The Palestinians seek the occupied West Bank and Gaza for a future independent state, with east Jerusalem as its capital.

Israeli police on Monday said they blocked a planned procession by Jewish ultranationalists through parts of Jerusalem’s Old City, following warnings that it could reignite tensions that led to a punishing 11-day war against Gaza’s militants last month. The parade, which celebrates Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, was underway on May 10 when Hamas militants in Gaza fired rockets toward the holy city, setting off heavy fighting. Some 254 people were killed in Gaza and 13 in Israel before a cease-fire took effect on May 21. The war was preceded by weeks of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian demonstrators in the Old City and in the nearby neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where Jewish settlers have waged a decades-long campaign to evict Palestinian families from their homes. READ: Israel arrests Jerusalem activists in contested neighborhood The procession, which had intended to go through the through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, is considered by Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem to be a provocation. In a statement, police said the proposal to hold the parade later this week was not approved, but new plans would be considered. The decision was attacked by organizers, who accused police of caving in to pressure from Hamas. Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the hard-line Religious Zionism party, tweeted a warning to embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “not to give in to Hamas threats.” Renewed tensions in east Jerusalem or fighting with Hamas could complicate Israel’s shaky politics. Netanyahu’s opponents last week said they have formed a coalition that could remove the prime minister from office after a 12-year term. The new coalition is expected to be sworn into office in the coming days. Over the weekend, Israeli police arrested and released a veteran reporter for the Al Jazeera satellite channel who had regularly been covering the Sheikh Jarrah. And on Sunday, authorities stormed the home of a leading activist in the neighborhood, arresting her and her brother. The siblings were later released. Before Muna al-Kurd was freed, police briefly clashed with a crowd outside the station, throwing stun grenades. READ: Netanyahu opponents reach coalition deal to oust Israeli PM Sheikh Jarrah is one of the most sensitive parts of east Jerusalem, home to sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims and which Israel captured in 1967 and annexed in a move not recognized internationally. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. The settlers are using a 1970 law that allows Jews to reclaim formerly Jewish properties lost during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, a right denied to Palestinians who lost property in the same conflict.

Israeli police firing tear gas, stun grenades and rubber-coated bullets clashed with Palestinian stone-throwers at a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site on Monday, the latest in a series of confrontations that is pushing the contested city to the brink of eruption. More than a dozen tear gas canisters and stun grenades landed in the Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, said an Associated Press photographer at the scene. At least 215 Palestinians were hurt in the violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, including 153 who were hospitalized, Palestinian medics said. Four of the injured were in serious condition. Police said nine officers were hurt, including one who was hospitalized. Monday’s confrontation was the latest in the sacred compound after days of mounting tensions between Palestinians and Israeli troops in the Old City of Jerusalem, the emotional ground zero of the conflict. Hundreds of Palestinians and about two dozen police officers have been hurt over the past few days. Read:Israeli police beef up presence in Jerusalem, fearing unrest The site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is also considered the holiest site in Judaism. The compound has been the trigger for rounds of Israel-Palestinian violence in the past. An AP photographer witnessing the clashes said that in the early morning hours, protesters had barricaded gates to the walled compound with wooden boards and scrap metal. Sometime after 7. a.m., clashes erupted, with those inside the compound throwing stones at police deployed outside. Police entered the compound, firing tear gas and stun grenades. At some point, about 400 people, both young protesters and older worshippers, were inside the carpeted Al-Aqsa Mosque. Police fired tear gas and stun grenades into the mosque. Police said protesters hurled stones at officers and onto an adjoining roadway near the Western Wall, where thousands of Israeli Jews had gathered to pray. Israel has come under growing international criticism for its heavy-handed actions at the site, particularly during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed in a tweet that “extremist Palestinians planned well in advance to carry out riots” at the holy site. He attached photos from the compound showing piles of stones and wooden boards, suggesting this was part of the protesters’ preparations for a confrontation. He said that Israel guarantees freedom of worship, but “not the freedom to riot and attack innocent people.” In another violent incident, Palestinian protesters hurled rocks at an Israeli vehicle driving just outside the Old City walls. The driver appeared to lose control and slammed into bystander. Police said in a statement that two passengers were injured. Earlier, police barred Jews from visiting the site on Monday, which Israelis mark as Jerusalem Day with a flag-waving parade through the Old City and its Muslim Quarter to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray. The marchers celebrate Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. In that conflict, Israel also captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It later annexed east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most sensitive holy sites, and considers the entire city its capital. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital. The police decision to ban Jewish visitors temporarily from the holy site came hours before the start of the Jerusalem Day march, which is widely perceived by Palestinians as a provocative display of Jewish hegemony over the contested city. Police have allowed the parade to take place despite growing concerns that it could further inflame the tension. This year the march coincides with Ramadan, a time of heightened religious sensitivities, and follows weeks of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians in Jerusalem. Violence has occurred almost nightly throughout Ramadan, beginning when Israel blocked off a popular spot where Muslims traditionally gather each night at the end of their daylong fast. Israel later removed the restrictions, but clashes quickly resumed amid tensions over the eviction plan in Sheikh Jarrah, an Arab neighborhood where settlers have waged a lengthy legal battle to take over properties. Israel’s Supreme Court postponed a key ruling Monday that could have led to the evictions of dozens of Palestinians from their homes, citing the “circumstances.” The Israeli crackdown and planned evictions have drawn harsh condemnations from Israel’s Arab allies and expressions of concern from the U.S., European Union and United Nations. The U.N. Security Council scheduled closed consultations Monday on the soaring tensions in Jerusalem. Diplomats said the meeting was requested by Tunisia, the Arab representative on the council. Late Sunday, the U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke to his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat, and urged calm. A White House statement said that Sullivan called on Israel to to “pursue appropriate measures to ensure calm” and expressed the U.S.’s “serious concerns” about the ongoing violence and planned evictions. The tensions in Jerusalem have threatened to reverberate throughout the region. Read:More Jerusalem clashes on eve of contentious Israeli parade Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have fired several barrages of rockets into Israel, and protesters allied with the ruling Hamas militant group have launched dozens of incendiary balloons into Israel, setting off fires across the southern part of the country. “The occupier plays with fire, and tampering with Jerusalem is very dangerous,” Saleh Arouri, a top Hamas official, told the militant group’s Al-Aqsa TV station. In response, COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry organ responsible for crossings with the Gaza Strip, announced Monday that it was closing the Erez crossing to all but humanitarian and exceptional cases until further notice. “This measure follows the decision to close the fishing zone yesterday, and following rocket fire and the continued launching of incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip toward the State of Israel, which constitute a violation of the Israeli sovereignty,” COGAT said in a statement.

Israeli police clashed with Palestinian protesters inside a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site on Monday. Officers fired tear gas and stun grenades and protesters hurled stones and other objects at police. Police said protesters threw stones from the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound onto an adjoining roadway. Also Read:Israeli police beef up presence in Jerusalem, fearing unrest Palestinians reported stun grenades fired into the mosque compound, with dozens injured. The site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is considered the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. The compound is the emotional epicenter of the conflict and has been center stage for Israel-Palestinian violence in the past. Earlier police barred Jews from visiting the site on Monday, which Israelis mark as Jerusalem Day. Also Read:More Jerusalem clashes on eve of contentious Israeli parade The police decision came hours before a planned march by hardline Israeli nationalists through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, an annual event widely perceived as a provocative display of Jewish hegemony over the contested city. Police have allowed the flag-waving parade to take place despite growing concerns that it could further fan the flames.

When Samira Dajani’s family moved into their first real home in 1956 after years as refugees, her father planted trees in the garden, naming them for each of his six children. Today, two towering pines named for Mousa and Daoud stand watch over the entrance to the garden where they all played as children. Pink bougainvillea climbs an iron archway on a path leading past almond, orange and lemon trees to their modest stone house. “The Samira tree has no leaves,” she says, pointing to the cypress that bears her name. “But the roots are strong.” She and her husband, empty nesters with grown children of their own, may have to leave it all behind on Aug. 1. That’s when Israel is set to forcibly evict them following a decades-long legal battle waged by ideological Jewish settlers against them and their neighbors. The Dajanis are one of several Palestinian families facing imminent eviction in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of east Jerusalem. The families’ plight has ignited weeks of demonstrations and clashes in recent days between protesters and Israeli police. It also highlights an array of discriminatory polices that rights groups say are aimed at pushing Palestinians out of Jerusalem to preserve its Jewish majority. The Israeli rights group B’Tselem and the New York-based Human Rights Watch both pointed to such policies as an example of what they say has become an apartheid regime. Also Read:More Jerusalem clashes on eve of contentious Israeli parade Israel rejects those accusations and says the situation in Sheikh Jarrah is a private real-estate dispute that the Palestinians have seized upon to incite violence. The Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions submitted by The Associated Press. A top municipal official and a settler group marketing “residential plots” in Sheikh Jarrah did not respond to requests for comment. Settler groups say the land was owned by Jews prior to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Israeli law allows Jews to reclaim such lands but bars Palestinians from recovering property they lost in the same war, even if they still reside in areas controlled by Israel. Samira Dajani’s parents fled in 1948 from their home in Baka — now an upscale neighborhood in mostly Jewish west Jerusalem. After several years spent as refugees in Jordan, Syria and east Jerusalem, which was then controlled by Jordan, Jordanian authorities offered them one of several newly built homes in Sheikh Jarrah in exchange for giving up their refugee status. “I have beautiful memories from this house,” says Dajani, now 70, recalling how she played with the other children in the close-knit neighborhood, where several other Palestinian refugee families had also been resettled. “It was like heaven after our exodus.” Things changed after Israel captured east Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza, in the 1967 Mideast war, and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. The Palestinians want all three territories for their future state and view east Jerusalem as their capital. In 1972, settler groups told the families that they were trespassing on Jewish-owned land. That was the start of a long legal battle that in recent months has culminated with eviction orders against 36 families in Sheikh Jarrah and two other east Jerusalem neighborhoods. Israeli rights groups say other families are also vulnerable, estimating that more than 1,000 Palestinians are at risk of being evicted. Also Read:Israeli police beef up presence in Jerusalem, fearing unrest The Dajanis and other families have been ordered to leave by Aug. 1. A Supreme Court hearing in the case of another four families that was to be held on Monday was postponed for at least a month. If they lose the appeal, they could be forcibly evicted within days or weeks. A woman from another family in Sheikh Jarrah said it was “an inhumane act” to take away someone’s home. She invited her parents to move in with her and her husband if they are evicted from the home where she was born and raised, but her father refused. “He said there is no way I’m leaving this neighborhood unless I’m dead,” she said, requesting anonymity for fear of retribution by Israeli authorities. “It’s been 65 years that he’s lived in this neighborhood.” Israel views all of Jerusalem as its unified capital and says residents are treated equally. But east Jerusalem residents have different rights depending on whether they are Jewish or Palestinian. Jews born in east Jerusalem are automatically granted Israeli citizenship, and Jews from anywhere else in the world are eligible to become Israeli citizens. Palestinians born in east Jerusalem are granted a form of permanent residency that can be revoked if they spend too much time living outside the city. They can apply for Israeli citizenship but must go through a difficult and uncertain bureaucratic process that can take months or years. Most refuse, because they do not recognize Israel’s annexation. Also Read:200 Palestinians hurt in Al-Aqsa clashes with police Palestinians are also treated differently when it comes to housing, which will make it difficult for the Sheikh Jarrah families to remain in Jerusalem if they are evicted. After 1967, Israel expanded the city’s municipal boundaries to take in large areas of open land where it has since built Jewish settlements that are home to tens of thousands of people. At the same time, it set the boundaries of Palestinian neighborhoods, restricting their growth. Today, more than 220,000 Jews live in east Jerusalem, mostly in built-up areas that Israel considers to be neighborhoods of its capital. Most of east Jerusalem’s 350,000 Palestinian residents are crammed into overcrowded neighborhoods where there is little room to build. Palestinians say the expense and difficulty of obtaining permits forces them to build illegally or move to the occupied West Bank, where they risk losing their Jerusalem residency. Israeli rights groups estimate that of the 40,000 homes in Palestinian neighborhoods, half have been built without permits and are at risk of demolition. In part due to the protests, Israel has come under international pressure over Sheikh Jarrah, with both the United States and the European Union expressing concern. Rights groups say the government can halt or postpone the evictions if it wants to. In the meantime, Samira Dajani has planted her spring flowers in small pots that she’ll be able to take with her if she is forced from her home in August. The trees named for her and her siblings will have to stay. She says she tries not to think about it. Also Read:Palestinians, Israel police clash at Al-Aqsa Mosque; 53 hurt “I don’t feel sad or scared, I feel angry,” she said. “God willing, these will not be our last days here.”

Israeli police beefed up forces in east Jerusalem and blocked busloads of Muslim pilgrims headed to the Al-Aqsa mosque for the holiest night of Ramadan, threatening to escalate already heightened religious tensions that have unleashed the worst unrest in the holy city in years. Police defended their actions as security moves, but these were seen as provocations by Muslims who accuse Israel of threatening their freedom of worship. Tensions in east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most sensitive Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites, lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have triggered major rounds of violence in the past. Police chief Koby Shabtai said he was deploying more police in Jerusalem following a night of heavy clashes on Friday between Palestinians and Israeli police. Israelis and Palestinians were bracing for more violence in the coming days. Saturday night is “Laylat al-Qadr” or the “Night of Destiny,” the most sacred in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Thousands of worshippers were gathered for intense nighttime prayers at Al-Aqsa. “The right to demonstrate will be respected but public disturbances will be met with force and zero tolerance. I call on everyone to act responsibly and with restraint,” Shabtai said. Police reported clashes with Palestinian protesters late Saturday in Jerusalem’s Old City, near Al-Aqsa, and in the nearby east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where dozens of Palestinians are fighting attempts by Israeli settlers to evict them from their homes. Police reported two arrests, and Palestinian medics said two protesters were hospitalized after being beaten by police. Police said one officer was wounded after being struck in the face with a rock. On Sunday evening, Jewish Israelis begin marking “Jerusalem Day,” a national holiday in which Israel celebrates its annexation of east Jerusalem and religious nationalists hold parades and other celebrations in the city. On Monday, an Israeli court is expected to issue a verdict on the planned evictions in Sheikh Jarrah. Israel captured east Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza — territories the Palestinians want for their future state — in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally, and views the entire city as its capital. The Palestinians view east Jerusalem — which includes major holy sites for Jews, Christians and Muslims — as their capital, and its fate is one of the most sensitive issues in the conflict. Earlier Saturday, police stopped more than a dozen buses that were filled with Arab citizens on the main highway heading to Jerusalem for Ramadan prayers. Israel’s public broadcaster Kan said police stopped the buses for a security check. Muslims fast from dawn to dusk during Ramadan, and travelers, upset that they were stopped without explanation on a hot day, exited the buses and blocked the highway in protest. Kan showed footage of the protesters praying, chanting slogans and marching along the highway toward Jerusalem. The road was reopened several hours later. Ibtasam Maraana, an Arab member of parliament, accused police of a “terrible attack” on freedom of religion. “Police: Remember that they are citizens, not enemies,” she wrote on Twitter. In Friday night’s violence, Palestinian medics said more than 200 Palestinians were wounded in clashes at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and elsewhere in Jerusalem. The violence drew condemnations from Israel’s Arab allies and calls for calm from the United States and Europe, and prompted the Arab League to schedule an emergency meeting on Monday. Police said 18 officers were injured. Protests broke out at the beginning of Ramadan three weeks ago when Israel restricted gatherings at a popular meeting spot outside Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel removed the restrictions, briefly calming the situation, but protests have reignited in recent days over the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinians from their homes in east Jerusalem, which is claimed by both sides in their decades-old conflict. Other recent developments, including the cancellation of Palestinian elections, deadly violence in which a Palestinian teenager, two Palestinian gunmen and a young Israeli man were killed in separate incidents in the West Bank, and the election to Israel’s parliament of a far-right Jewish nationalist party, also have contributed to the tense atmosphere. One right-wing lawmaker, Itamar Ben-Gvir, briefly set up an outdoor “office” in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood last week, infuriating local residents. The Al-Aqsa mosque compound is the third holiest site in Islam. It is also the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of the biblical temples. It has long been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and was the epicenter of the 2000 Palestinian intifada, or uprising. In recent days, protests have grown over Israel’s threatened eviction in Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem of dozens of Palestinians embroiled in a long legal battle with Israeli settlers trying to acquire property in the neighborhood. The United States said it was “deeply concerned” about both the violence and the threatened evictions, and was in contact with leaders on both sides to try and de-escalate tensions. “It is critical to avoid steps that exacerbate tensions or take us farther away from peace,” the U.S. State Department said. “This includes evictions in East Jerusalem, settlement activity, home demolitions, and acts of terrorism.” The European Union also urged calm and expressed concern about the potential evictions. Egypt and Jordan, which made peace with Israel decades ago, condemned its actions, as did the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain, which was one of four Arab countries that signed U.S.-brokered normalization agreements with Israel last year. In a call to Palestine TV late Friday, President Mahmoud Abbas praised the “courageous stand” of the protesters and said Israel bore full responsibility for the violence. Abbas last week postponed planned parliamentary elections, citing Israeli restrictions in east Jerusalem for the delay. Israel’s Foreign Ministry had earlier accused the Palestinians of seizing on the threatened evictions, which it described as a “real-estate dispute between private parties,” in order to incite violence. Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and opposes Israel’s existence, has called for a new intifada. Protest groups affiliated with Hamas said they would resume demonstrations and the launching of incendiary balloons along the heavily-guarded Gaza frontier. Israeli media said the army sent additional troops to the area in response. Hamas has largely curtailed such actions over the past two years as part of an informal cease-fire that now appears to be fraying. In an interview with a Hamas-run TV station, the group’s top leader Ismail Haniyeh warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to “play with fire” in Jerusalem. “Neither you, nor your army and police, can win this battle,” he said.

After using water cannons to disperse protesters in central Jerusalem, Israeli police arrested over 55 as clashes broke out overnight after thousands demonstrated against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday.

The Chinese ambassador to Israel was found dead in his home north of Tel Aviv on Sunday, Israel's Foreign Ministry said.