According to Palestinian doctors, at least 31 Palestinians were hurt in skirmishes with Israeli police at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Friday, the latest in a recent spike of violence at a site venerated by Muslims and Jews alike.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service, 14 Palestinians were carried to the hospital, two of them were seriously injured.

When hundreds of individuals began throwing rocks and pyrotechnics near the Western Wall, where Jewish service was taking place, Israeli police stated their personnel intervened.

The witnesses said that after morning prayers, police entered the area and fired rubber-tipped bullets and stun grenades into a throng of roughly 200 Palestinians, some of whom were throwing rocks. Witnesses reported police fired rubber-tipped bullets from close range at a group of journalists who were filming the skirmishes.

In recent weeks, there has been an uptick in violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, raising fears of a relapse into a larger confrontation, similar to last year’s Gaza war.

[embedpost slug=”migrant-buses-from-texas-continue-to-arrive-in-washington-dc/”]