Temple Mount funeral: Jerusalem sees worst violence in a year

Worst unrest since 2021 Israel-Gaza clash sees two Israeli police officers hospitalized, widespread rioting and an attempted car ramming attack.

By World Israel News Staff

Jerusalem saw its most intense rioting since last year’s Israel-Gaza clash on Monday evening, with at least 18 people arrested, an attempted car ramming, and six Israeli police officers injured in the clashes.

On the Temple Mount, Arab rioters threw firebombs and rocks and launched fireworks at Israeli security forces, as well as physically clashing with police.

Police responded with crowd-dispersal tools, including rubber bullets and smoke and stun grenades.

In eastern Jerusalem, rioters vandalized property and threw heavy objects, such as cinder blocks and water heaters, from rooftops onto police officers on the streets below them.

The unrest began with a funeral procession for Walid a-Sharif, a rioter who was seriously wounded on the Temple Mount nearly a month ago during the Ramadan holiday. He succumbed to his injuries on Monday morning.

Israeli police said the man slipped and fell while throwing rocks at security forces, but his family says he was shot in the head by a sponge-tipped bullet.

Maor Tzemach, chair of the Your Jerusalem NGO, noted that “for the first time since Operation Protective Edge [in 2014], Israel allowed the body of a terrorist to be returned to east Jerusalem, while those [accompanying the body] are inciting against the State of Israel.

“Former Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan did not permit funeral processions for terrorists in east Jerusalem. Another red line for security has been breached in Jerusalem.”

At one point early in the rioting, a vehicle sped at a group of Border Police officers in an attempted ramming attack in the A-Tur neighborhood.

The officers shot out the car’s tires, forcing it to stop, and arrested the five occupants inside. No casualties were reported from the incident.

Video from social media showed Border Police officers, in full riot gear, running down a street in in eastern Jerusalem. An unknown assailant throws what appears to be a concrete object from the fourth-floor rooftop of an apartment building, which strikes a police officer. The officer is knocked unconscious by the blow and seen being dragged away by his colleagues.

Two Israeli police officers were hospitalized as a result of injuries sustained during the clashes, according to an official statement. Four others were lightly wounded and did not require additional medical treatment.

Israeli officials said 18 rioters have been arrested, but Palestinian media claimed that at least 50 people were detained.