Powerful Photos Of Palestinians Sitting Unfazed In Al-Aqsa Mosque During Israeli Raids Go Viral
Days after Israeli forces raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, powerful pictures of Palestinians looking unfazed amid the chaos have gone viral.
Unfazed, worshippers continued sitting as forces entered the mosque
Social media users are sharing photos on the hashtag #not_budging of mostly elderly Palestinian worshippers sitting defiantly in the mosque while Israeli forces club people with batons, and fire teargas, stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets.
Some Palestinians have tried to respond to the assault by throwing rocks at the heavily armed forces, create loud noise to disrupt settlers, or raise their voices with national chants.? ?
But for many, ignoring the commotion was more than enough.
The Islamic endowment that runs the site said Israeli police entered in force before dawn on Friday, as thousands of worshippers were gathered at the mosque for early morning prayers.It was the most serious violence at the holy site in nearly a year.?Palestinians view any large deployment of police at Al-Aqsa as a provocation.
What Palestinians said?
The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service said it evacuated the majority of the wounded to hospitals. The endowment said one of the guards at the site was shot in the eye with a rubber-coated bullet.
The Palestinian Red Crescent added Israeli forces hindered the arrival of ambulances and paramedics to the mosque, as Palestinian media said dozens of injured worshippers remained trapped inside the compound.
What Israeli police said
Israeli police said they entered the compound, the third holiest site in Islam and revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, to break up a ¡°violent¡± crowd that remained at the end of the morning prayers.
They went in ¡°to disperse and push back¡± the crowd after a group of Palestinians began throwing rocks towards the nearby Jewish prayer space of the Western Wall.
But Palestinian cameraman Rami al-Khatib, who witnessed the raid, said: ¡±They [Israeli forces] brutally emptied the compound. They were attacking the mosque staff, normal people, elders, young people.¡°There were many injured people, they fired rubber bullets inside Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. They were beating everyone, even the paramedics, they hit them,¡± said al-Khatib, who suffered a broken hand.
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