Some 50 Jewish settlers, flanked by heavily armed Israeli special forces, stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem in the early morning, hours after Palestinian worshippers were beaten and assaulted by Israeli police, according to the Islamic authority overseeing the site.
Citing witnesses, Palestinian news agency WAFA said Israeli police had earlier on Sunday assaulted Palestinian worshippers who were performing dawn prayers at the mosque and “excessively beat” them in order to make way for Israeli Jewish settlers to storm the compound – Islam’s third-holiest site.