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- Jordan’s King Abdullah warns Israeli moves in Al-Aqsa mosque are threat to peace, during call with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
- US officials engaged with Israelis, Palestinians, Arab countries over tensions in Jerusalem, State Department says
LONDON: The UN Security Council will meet on Tuesday over violence around a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site that wounded 170 people at the weekend, diplomatic sources told AFP.
The meeting, called by China, France, the UAE, Norway and Ireland, will be held behind closed doors, and comes after days of violence in and around Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
On Friday, at least 152 Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli riot police inside the mosque compound, the latest outbreak in an upsurge of violence that has raised fears of a slide back to wider conflict.
The clashes — at a tense time when the Jewish Passover festival coincides with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan — also follow deadly violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank starting in late March, in which 36 people have been killed.
Jews are allowed to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, but not to pray at the site, the holiest place in Judaism and third-holiest in Islam.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II said on Monday that Israel’s “unilateral” moves against Muslim worshippers at Al-Aqsa mosque seriously undermined the prospects for peace in the region, state media said.
The monarch, who was speaking with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during a call, blamed Israel for “provocative acts” in the mosque compound that violated “the legal and historic status quo” of the holy shrines.
King Abdullah on Sunday had called on Israel to “stop all illegal and provocative measures” that drive “further aggravation.”
The kingdom serves as custodian of holy places in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in 1967 and later annexed in a move not recognized by most of the international community.
Meanwhile, a number of US officials engaged in phone calls with Israelis, Palestinians and Arab representatives in the region over the weekend to see to it that tensions in Jerusalem do not escalate, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Monday.
Weeks of mounting tensions have seen two recent deadly attacks by Palestinians in or near the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv, alongside mass arrests by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.
(With AFP and Reuters)