Ahmad Tibi: Clip of police ‘brutally beating worshipers’ at Al-Aqsa led to rockets

Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi says he believes a viral video clip of police officers “brutally beating worshipers” at Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday night was a major cause for the rocket fire against Israel.

“This video is viral in the entire Islamic world,” he tells Channel 12. “I assess that this clip led to rocket fire. Whoever gave the order for officers [to act that way] bears responsibility and is a fool.”

הפלסטינים מדווחים – שוטרים עם אלות מכים מתפללים ללא אבחנה באלות ובנשק, אחרי שנכנסו למסגד. pic.twitter.com/QZooMwaXsk

— Deiaa haj yahia-ضياء حاج يحيى (@DeiaaHaj) April 4, 2023

In response to Tibi’s interview, a “senior police source” tells Channel 12 that its forces came under “direct fire inside Al-Aqsa” overnight.

The TV station’s Palestinian affairs reporter Ohad Hemo says that for the past week Hamas and other Gaza groups had been asserting that Israel intend to come and defile Al-Aqsa, so that 400 young Palestinians, masked, barricaded themselves inside the mosque in “a provocation” designed “precisely to cause these scenes.”