Clashes in Jerusalem: Hamas launched rocket salute at Israel

Israeli protesters run for safety as rocket warning sirens sounded in Jerusalem on May 10, 2021. AP - Ariel Schalit

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The Islamist movement Hamas launched bursts of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Monday, as alarm bells from Israeli authorities sounded in Jerusalem.

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According to the Israeli army, it would be a missile fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory and the Hamas Islamist movement in power in the Palestinian enclave effectively claims the attack " 

carried out in response to the crimes committed by the occupation forces

 ”, reports our correspondent in Jerusalem,

Sami Boukhelifa

.

Hamas had earlier threatened Israel with a further military escalation if its forces did not withdraw at 6:00 p.m. (3:00 p.m. GMT) from the Mosque Esplanade in Jerusalem, the scene on Monday morning

of clashes between Israeli police officers and Palestinian demonstrators

who made more than 300 injured.

While it is common for sirens to sound in Israeli towns near Gaza, it is much rarer for Jerusalem, which is 80 km from Gaza to be targeted, especially as thousands of nationalist, supremacist Jews parade for celebrate the day of Jerusalem, the conquest by the Hebrew state of the holy city.

The Western Wall temporarily evacuated

The sirens created a crowd movement, the Israeli security forces asked the assembled men, women and children to take shelter as quickly as possible.

This notably forced the temporary evacuation of the Western Wall, the most sacred site where Jews can pray before a return to normalcy later in the evening.

To avoid exacerbating tensions and violence, the Israeli police also cut the city in two and deployed a security cordon between the Arab sector and the Jewish side, thus preventing any direct confrontation.

 The Israeli military reported seven rockets fired from Gaza, one of which was intercepted by the Israeli "

 Iron Dome

" missile shield

 .

"The Al-Qassam Brigades (armed wing of Hamas) are now launching rockets against the enemy in occupied Jerusalem in response to its crimes and aggression against the Holy City and its abuses against our people in Sheikh Jarrah and the mosque Al-Aqsa ”located on the Esplanade des Mosques, they said in a brief message.

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