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JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants fired a barrage of rockets early Thursday, setting off air raid sirens in southern Israel, as violence erupted for the second day in a row throughout a delicate interval of overlapping holidays.
The barrage got here after one other tense evening at Jerusalem’s most delicate holy website, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the place Israeli police clashed with Muslim worshippers trying to remain in a single day, in defiance of long-standing compromises about administration of the compound. The Israeli army mentioned seven rockets launched from the Gaza Strip all exploded in midair. No group claimed accountability for the barrage.
Unrest within the area was much less intense than the earlier days, however the rocket hearth raised fears of a wider conflagration as Jews started the week-long Passover vacation, lots of of Christians within the Previous Metropolis gathered for Holy Thursday on the Holy Sepulcher to mark the Final Supper, and Muslims marked the Ramadan holy month.
Al-Aqsa is the third-holiest website in Islam and stands on a hilltop identified to Jews because the Temple Mount, which is the holiest website in Judaism. Conflicting claims over it have spilled into violence earlier than, together with a bloody 11-day warfare two years in the past between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that guidelines Gaza.
Since Ramadan started March 22, scores of Muslim worshippers have repeatedly tried to remain in a single day within the mosque, a follow that’s usually permitted solely over the last 10 days of the monthlong vacation. Israeli police have entered nightly to evict the worshippers.
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