Jerusalem police arrest 8 worshippers at Al-Aqsa for chants supporting terror at Ramadan morning prayers

Thousands of Muslim worshipers attend Friday prayers during Ramadan, at the Al-Aqsa compound atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City, March 29, 2024. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)
Thousands of Muslim worshipers attend Friday prayers during Ramadan, at the Al-Aqsa compound atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City, March 29, 2024. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

Jerusalem police arrest eight people suspected of chants amounting to incitement and support for terrorism after morning prayers for the final Friday of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa Mosque atop the Temple Mount.

A police statement says thousands of worshippers attended morning prayers, with police deployed in large numbers throughout Jerusalem’s Old City.

The suspects, four from East Jerusalem and four from northern Israel, have been detained for questioning.

“These vile instigators and supporters of terrorism are residents of the State of Israel who take advantage of a religious occasion and use a holy place of prayer for incitement and support for terrorism and terrorists,” the police statement says.

“They harm first and foremost the normative Muslim public who come to the Temple Mount and do not take part in those serious incitement demonstrations.”

Army Radio shares a clip of one of the arrests on social media.

Despite heightened worries this year of potential unrest stemming from the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza, triggered by the group’s shock October 7 attack, Friday afternoon prayers for Ramadan at the Temple Mount have passed peacefully over the past three weeks.

The site 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 perennial flashpoint of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

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