Faithful to the face crossed out with a sanitary mask, ribbon glued to the carpets to separate them during prayer: the Esplanade of the Mosques reopened on Sunday May 31 after two months of closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the day after the died near a Palestinian who caused a great stir.

In the cool and windy night, dozens of Muslims had gathered in front of one of the large wooden doors of the enclosure to enter the premises shortly after 3:00 am (00:00 GMT), even before "the azan ", the call to prayer, noted an AFP journalist on the spot.

"God is great, we will protect Al-Aqsa with our soul and our blood", repeated at the entrance the faithful greeted by the director of the al-Aqsa mosque, Omar Kiswani, who congratulated them for their patience.

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Referred to as Haram al-Sharif - "Noble Shrine" - by Muslims and Temple Mount by Jews, the Esplanade of the Mosques houses the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It is administered by the Waqf of Jerusalem, an organization which depends on Jordan.

The Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque were also opened to the faithful on Sunday morning after being closed in mid-March by religious authorities as part of health measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus in Jerusalem, a disputed city whose the eastern part has been occupied and annexed by Israel since 1967.

The third holiest site in Islam, the Esplanade des Mosques had been closed to the public in mid-March, at the very beginning of the Covid-19 crisis in the Palestinian Territories and Israel.

Vigilance in an attempt to control the spread of the coronavirus

Since then, Israel has registered more than 17,000 infections in its population of around nine million, including 284 deaths. On the Palestinian side, less than 500 cases have been confirmed in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, including 3 dead, for a total population of around five million.

During the past ten weeks, the muezzins had called the faithful to pray, but at home, even during the holy month of Ramadan which ended last week.

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"At the end of the call to prayer, I say 'now pray in your homes' and it tears my heart to pieces," said Firas al-Kazaz, one of the Al-Aqsa muezzins whose AFP the family has passed this role on for over 500 years.

If the Esplanade, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock reopened on Sunday, the authorities remained vigilant in an attempt to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

The staff thus provided sanitary masks to the faithful who did not have them, others took the temperature of people entering the enclosure. And on the red prayer carpets, strips of white ribbon were glued at intervals to maintain a physical distance during the prayer.

Disabled Palestinian Man Killed By Israeli Police

Israeli soldiers posted nearby were also on the alert on Sunday because the reopening of this holy place of Islam comes the day after the death, precisely in the old city of Jerusalem, of a 32-year-old Palestinian, Iyad Hallak, presenting cognitive impairment, and killed by Israeli police.  

The young man, suspected of being armed but who in fact was not, had been chased by the police who opened fire on him to shoot him, which aroused great emotion.

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Fatah, the secular party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, denounced "the execution of a young disabled man". And hundreds of people marched on Saturday evening near the police headquarters in Jerusalem and also in Tel Aviv to denounce the death of this Palestinian.

"Police violence kills", or "Justice for Iyad", could we read in Hebrew on placards of demonstrators who wore masks. The police said they are launching an investigation.

Online, Iyad Hallak's photos were circulating over the hashtags #PalestinianLivesMatter, (Palestinian lives matter) or #ICantbreath in reference to the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-racist protests going on at United States.

With AFP

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