120,000 Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa as 2nd Friday Ramadan prayers pass peacefully
Police deploy thousands of officers in Jerusalem’s Old City and around Temple Mount, say no ‘unusual disturbances,’ despite seeing attempts to incite violence on social media
Some 120,000 people attended the second Friday prayers of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa-Mosque on the Temple Mount, which ended peacefully and without any disturbances, police and religious authorities said.
The Islamic Waqf, which administers the mosque compound, estimated that around 120,000 people took part in the prayers, up from an estimated 80,000 last week.
Police in a statement said that they had deployed thousands of officers in Jerusalem’s Old City and around the Temple Mount to ensure that the event passed peacefully. Police did not give a specific number, saying only that “tens of thousands took part.”
Police said there were “no unusual disturbances,” however, they noted that there had been attempts to “spread fake news and false stories on Arabic social media” in an attempt to incite violence.
The Haaretz daily reported that around 10,000 of the worshippers traveled from the West Bank to attend the prayers.
This marked the second successive Friday prayers to pass without incident in the Muslim holy month despite fears of disturbances after the Hamas terror group had called on Palestinian worshipers to barricade themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
In a statement last week, Hamas had called on followers to “participate urgently in defending Al-Aqsa Mosque against the aggression that lurks in these critical times.”
In past years during Ramadan, Palestinians have at times barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is situated on the Temple Mount, some with explosives and rocks. Police operations to clear them out have often resulted in violence.
This year’s Ramadan comes amid tinderbox tensions stemming from the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza, triggered by the group’s shock October 7 attack, when thousands of terrorists rampaged through southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages.
Terror groups have called on Palestinians to come to the Al-Aqsa Mosque to confront Israel over the war in Gaza.
Police officers scuffled with some attendees at the Temple Mount entrance on the first night of Ramadan, but the holy site has been relatively peaceful since.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged ahead of Ramadan that the number of worshipers allowed to pray on the Temple Mount would be the same as in previous years and that no restrictions would be imposed on Arab Israelis, overruling the wishes of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, an ultranationalist firebrand who oversees the Israel Police.
COGAT, the Israeli defense body in charge of civilian affairs in the West Bank, has ruled that Palestinian residents’ access to the site for Friday’s prayers will be limited to men over 55, women over 50, and children under 10.
The Temple Mount is the holiest place in Judaism, where two biblical Temples once stood, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third-holiest shrine in Islam, making the site a central flashpoint of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
