The
Israeli MILITARY said three more rockets were launched from
Syria toward Israel early on Sunday, raising to six the number of missiles fired within hours in a rare attack from Israel’s north-eastern neighbour. Israel’s army said it was retaliating with artillery strikes on the area in Syria from where the rockets were fired at Israel. The rocket firings come after days of escalating violence on multiple fronts over tension in
JERUSALEM and an Israeli
police raid on the city’s most sensitive holy site. In the second barrage, two of the rockets crossed the border into Israel, with one being intercepted and the second landing in an open area, the military said. In the first attack, one rocket landed in a field in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Fragments of another destroyed
missile fell into Jordanian territory near the Syrian border, Jordan’s military reported. There were no reports of casualties. Meanwhile, a Damascus-based Palestinian group loyal to the Syrian regime claimed responsibility for launching the three missiles on Israel on Saturday, reported Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV. The report quoted Al-Quds Brigade, a militia different than the larger Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s armed wing with a similar name, as saying it fired the rockets to retaliate for the police raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque. Demonstrators in Rabat protest after clashes between Israeli police and
Palestinians inside Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque (Image: Getty Images) In Syria, an adviser to President Bashar Assad described the rocket strikes as “part of the previous, present and continuing response to the brutal enemy”. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli security forces fatally shot a 20-year-old Palestinian in the town of Azzun, Palestinian health officials said, stirring
protests in the area. The Israeli military said troops fired at Palestinians hurling stones and explosive devices. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the Palestinian killed as Ayed Salim. His death came at a time of unusually heightened violence in the West Bank. Over 90 Palestinians and have been killed by Israeli
fire so far this year, at least half of them affiliated with militant groups, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Palestinian attacks on Israelis have killed 19 people in that time — including on Friday when two British-Israeli
Women were shot to death near a settlement in the Jordan Valley and an Italian tourist was killed by a suspected car-ramming in Tel Aviv. All but one of the 19 killed were civilians. Subscribe here for the latest news where you live The rocket fire from Syria comes against the backdrop of soaring Israeli-Palestinian tensions touched off by an Israeli police raid on Jerusalem’s most sensitive site, the sacred compound home to the Al-Aqsa mosque. That outraged Palestinians marking the holy fasting month of Ramadan and prompted militants in
Lebanon — as well as Palestinian militants in the
Gaza Strip — to fire a heavy barrage of rockets into Israel. In retaliation, Israeli warplanes struck sites allegedly linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza and southern Lebanon. Late on Saturday, tensions ran high in Jerusalem as a few hundred Palestinian worshippers barricaded themselves in the mosque, which sits on a hilltop in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Israeli police efforts to evict the worshippers locked in the mosque overnight with stockpiled firecrackers and stones spiralled into unrest in the holy site earlier this week. The latest escalations prompted Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant to extend a closure barring entrance to Israel for Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip for the duration of the Jewish holiday of Passover, while police beefed up forces in Jerusalem on the eve of sensitive religious celebrations. London-born sisters Maia and Rina Dee were shot dead in an attack on their car near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank on Friday In a separate incident in the northern West Bank city of Nablus late on Saturday, a leader of a local independent armed group known as the Lion’s Den claimed the group executed an alleged Israeli collaborator who had tipped off the Israeli military to the locations and movements of the group’s members. Jerusalem’s Old City, home to key Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites, has been teeming with visitors and religious pilgrims from around the world. Mr Gallant said that a closure imposed last Wednesday, on the eve of Passover, would remain in effect until the holiday ends on Wednesday night. The order prevents Palestinians from entering Israel for work or to pray in Jerusalem this week, though mass prayers were permitted at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday. Mr Gallant also ordered the Israeli military to be prepared to assist Israeli police. The army later announced that it was deploying additional troops around Jerusalem and in the West Bank. For stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.