Police investigate possible arson near Old City in Jerusalem

Israel Police were investigating whether a fire in East Jerusalem on Wednesday, just outside the Old City, was deliberately set and nationalistically motivated.

Police received a report of several trees blazing near a government office in Wadi Joz, a spokesperson said. Firefighters managed to extinguish the fire and police were investigating the incident.

The fire caused external damage to the entrance of a National Insurance Institute building in the East Jerusalem neighborhood.

Police said they have not ruled out any cause, including nationalistically motivated arson..

On Friday, Wadi Joz was the scene of clashes between Palestinians protesters and Israeli police over security measures at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, in place since a July 14 terror attack in which three terrorists shot dead two Israeli police officers with weapons they had smuggled onto the sensitive holy site.

The move led to protests in and around East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and some Muslim capitals, as well as a boycott of the site by Muslim worshipers, at the urging of Islamic leaders who administer the Temple Mount. The site houses the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock sanctuary.

Over the weekend, violent clashes broke out between Palestinian rioters and security forces in which five Palestinian died. On Friday night, a Palestinian terrorist stabbed to death three members of a family sitting down to Shabbat dinner in the West Bank settlement of Halamish, having infiltrated their home to carry out the murders.

Israel removed the metal detectors from the Temple Mount Tuesday and other security measures on Wednesday night, answering a list of demands by Muslim authorities who administer the site to remove all security changes at access points to the compound.

The list included reopening five gates to the Temple Mount closed in the latest crisis, the removal of five new cameras installed in the Mount area, and the removal of the metal railings placed at the entrances.

It was not immediately clear whether Muslim authorities would now give their approval to re-enter the site.

Both Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party and its Hamas rival have called for a second week of demonstrations throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem on Friday to protest the measures, significantly raising fears of renewed violence.

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism and is revered as the site of the biblical temples. It is also the third-holiest site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. Under an arrangement in place since Israel captured Jerusalem’s Old City in the Six Day War in 1967 and extended its sovereignty there, non-Muslims are allowed access to the site but are forbidden to pray there. Under this status quo, Israel is responsible for security at the site while the Jordanian trust — the Waqf — is in charge of administrative duties.