AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – The
Zionist regime’s police arrested several Palestinians outside the contested Old City of Al-Quds on Monday night as tensions flared during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The Palestinian Ma’an news agency said Zionist troops used tear gas and sound bombs to disperse the Palestinians who had gathered for Iftar, a meal served at the end of the fasting day during Ramadan, near Bab al-Amoud on Monday night.
Citing witnesses, the news agency said at least six Palestinian youths were arrested during the clashes, three of whom were taken into custody by undercover special Zionist troops and severely beaten.
According to Palestinian media, the occupying regime has since the start of Ramadan turned the Bab al-Amoud into a military barracks by deploying a large number of its troops in the area.
The latest violence came after Zionist police detained 10 Palestinians and injured some 20 others in the same area on Sunday.
Palestine’s official Wafa news agency said the confrontations started after the regime’s police intensified their presence at Bab al-Amoud and placed barriers on both sides of it since the first day of the holy month of Ramadan.
“Police beat up and detained some 10 Palestinians as they attacked the youths to force them to leave the area, including an elderly man who sustained a head injury after being beaten up by the police,” the agency said.
The flare-up of tensions coincided with the Zionist foreign minister Yair Lapid’s provocative visit to Bab al-Amoud in the Old City of Al-Quds, which was denounced by the Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas as a “dangerous escalation.”
Hamas spokesman Mohamed Hamada said in a statement on Sunday that Lapid’s tour of Bab al-Amud and the violent police raid on the same area reflected the regime’s persistence in carrying out malicious plots against the occupied Al-Quds and the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque.