Posted on 04/04/24
| News Source: Times of Israel
Israeli police were set to be deployed in large numbers throughout Jerusalem’s Old City for the final Friday of Ramadan, with large numbers of worshipers expected to attend prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque atop the Temple Mount.
Police said some 3,600 officers will guard the area and numerous roads would be shuttered to traffic during the day. An enhanced police presence will also be on hand at night for Laylat al-Qadr, which is the holiest night of the year in Islam and considered to be particularly sensitive in terms of security concerns.
Despite heightened worries this year of potential unrest stemming from the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza, which was triggered by the group’s shock October 7 attack, Friday afternoon prayers for Ramadan at the Temple Mount have passed peacefully the past three weeks.
The site is the holiest place in Judaism, where two biblical Temples once stood, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third-holiest shrine in Islam, making the site a perennial flashpoint of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Also Friday, Iran and its allies will commemorate Quds (Jerusalem) Day, which they have marked on the last Friday of Ramadan each year since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, claiming it as an occasion to express support for the Palestinians.