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| Muslims have heeded calls not to enter a Jerusalem holy site, after Israeli authorities stepped up security measures following an attack that killed two policemen. |
The compound was largely empty apart from tourists and Jewish visitors,
with Muslims again praying and protesting outside the site instead of entering
through the metal detectors.
The Haram al-Sharif compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount,
includes the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Several hundred people could be seen praying outside two different
entrances to the site on Monday.
There were protests after the prayer, with crowds shouting: "Aqsa
mosque, we sacrifice our souls and our blood."
Police later sought to move them back.
"We will not break the solidarity of the people," said Jamal
Abdallah, a Palestinian who now lives in the US state of Arizona and was
planning to visit Al-Aqsa but changed his mind when he was made aware of the
situation.
In the evening, several dozen Palestinians blocked a road near the Old
City. Israeli officers dispersed the protesters, who hurled stones and other
objects, police read.
Palestinian medical sources said 11 people were treated for rubber
bullet injuries and dozens of others for tear gas inhalation.
Israel installed the metal detectors after Friday's attack near the holy
site that saw three Arab Israelis open fire on Israeli police.
They then fled to the compound, where they were shot dead by security
forces.
It was among the most serious incidents in Jerusalem in recent years and
heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
Israel took the highly unusual decision of closing the compound for the
weekly Friday prayers, triggering anger from Muslims and Jordan, the holy
site's custodian.
The site remained closed on Saturday, and parts of Jerusalem's Old City
were also under lockdown.
Israeli authorities said the closure was necessary to carry out security
checks, adding that the assailants had come from within the holy site to commit
the attack.
They began reopening it on Sunday, but with metal detectors in place,
while security cameras were also being installed in the area.
Al-Aqsa officials have refused to enter and have called on worshippers
to do the same.
Palestinians view the new measures as Israel asserting further control
over the site.
Crowds chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) as they
gathered near the Lions Gate entrance to Jerusalem's Old City on Sunday.
On Sunday night, skirmishes broke out between Israeli police and
worshippers outside the entrance, with the Red Crescent reporting 17 people
wounded.
With tensions high, two mosques in the northern Israeli Arab town of
Maghar were targeted on Sunday night, one with a stun grenade and another by
gunshots. No serious damage was reported.
One of the two policemen killed in Friday's attack lived in Maghar. Both
of the officers were from the Druze minority, Arabs who belong to an offshoot
of Shiite Islam.
- Netanyahu order -
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the decision to install the metal
detectors and cameras following a meeting with security officials on Saturday.
He also spoke by phone with Jordan's King Abdullah II on Saturday night
before leaving on a trip to France and Hungary.
Abdullah condemned the attack, but also called on Netanyahu to reopen
the Al-Aqsa compound and stressed the need to "avoid any escalation at the
site".
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas conveyed a similar message to
Netanyahu when the two spoke by phone on Friday in the wake of the attack.
Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip and Abbas's rival,
has welcomed the attack, calling it "a natural response to the Zionist
terrorism and the desecration of the Al-Aqsa mosque".
On Monday in a joint statement, Hamas and Islamic Jihad called for demonstrations
over Al-Aqsa.
"We call for an end to all the Zionist measures and for the
extremist government to take its hands off the blessed Al-Aqsa mosque," it
said.
Proposals to change security measures at the compound have sparked
controversy in the past.
A plan developed in 2015 between Israel and Jordan to install cameras at
the site itself fell apart amid disagreement over how they would be operated.
The Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount is central to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
It stands in east Jerusalem, seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East
and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.
It is considered the third holiest site in Islam and the most sacred for
Jews.
Jews are allowed to visit but not pray there
to avoid provoking tensions.
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