Hamas Fires More Than 200 Missiles at Israel following Dangerous Temple Mount Riots
The Islamist terror group Hamas fired hundreds of missiles at Jerusalem on Monday, after hundreds of rioters were injured in clashes with Israeli police on the Temple Mount.
NBC News reports that during the Jerusalem Day escalation, Hamas militants launched over 200 rockets into Israel in what an Israeli Defense Forces spokesman called a “blatant, severe attack.” During the attack, the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, was forced to halt its session and evacuate.
These missiles mark the first missile attack on Jerusalem since 2014, The Christian Post reports.
According to Reuters, in response to incendiary weapons fired from the Palestinian enclave that destroyed Israeli agriculture, Israel’s military said it targeted underground infrastructure and a military post belonging to Gaza’s Islamist rulers (Hamas).
Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, insisted that the rocket attack was in reply to Israeli “crimes and violence” in Jerusalem.
Tensions were already unusually high as Israel celebrated “Jerusalem Day,” its annual commemoration of the conquest of East Jerusalem and the walled Old City, which contains Muslim, Jewish and Christian holy sites, but this attack increased them to heights not seen except before the Trump Administration.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of their proposed state in the disputed West Bank and Gaza. Tensions have also been heightened by the scheduled evictions of many Palestinian families from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
A lower court had ruled in favor of Jewish settlers’ claims to the lands on which Palestinian homes are built. Palestinians saw this as an attempt by Israel to kick them out of the disputed section of Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Red Crescent told The Associated Press that more than 305 Palestinians were wounded in clashes in and around Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City, with at least 228 taken to hospitals during a riot when angered Muslims clashed with Israelis. Additionally, 21 officers were reportedly injured, including three who were admitted.
Photo courtesy: Fatima Shbair/Stringer
John Paluska has been a contributor for Christian Headlines since 2016 and is the founder of The Washington Gazette, a news outlet he relaunched in 2019 as a response to the constant distribution of fake news.
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