The Israeli police announced on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday that they intervened inside the Al-Aqsa Islamic Mosque, in the Old City of East Jerusalem, to disperse and remove “rioters” who, according to it, entered the place of worship with “fireworks on them” , sticks and stones”, in the middle of Ramadan.

Denouncing an “unprecedented crime”, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, called on West Bank Palestinians to “go en masse to the Al-Aqsa Islamic mosque to defend it”.

Al Aqsa is located in the Square of the Mosques, Islam’s third holiest place of worship, in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the holy city that Israel owns and has annexed. It is located on what Jews call the Temple Mount, considered the holiest site in Judaism.

The incidents are recorded in the month of Ramadan and while Jews celebrate Passover from tonight, against the backdrop of the continued escalation of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this year.

Israeli police released video clips of more than 50 seconds showing explosions that appear to have been caused by fireworks at the place of worship, while silhouettes can be seen throwing stones. In another sequence, police officers in riot gear advance into the mosque raising shields to protect themselves from objects being thrown at them. Police are also shown removing at least five people with their hands tied to bars.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, at least seven Palestinians were injured. According to the same source, wounded bearers were prevented from entering the Islamic mosque.

“I was sitting on a chair and reciting (the Koran),” the elderly woman told Reuters news agency, still breathing hard, when Israeli police stormed in and “threw stun grenades, one of which hit me in the chest,” she added, before start crying

Nabil Abu Rudayna, spokesman for the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, emphasized that “we warn the occupying power (including Israel) not to cross the red lines in the holy places, because it will lead to a big explosion.”

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry, for its part, called for an immediate end to Israel’s “attack” against believers in Al-Aqsa.

A short time after the news broke that incidents broke out in the place of worship, rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip against the territory of Israel, AFP journalists found and reported eyewitnesses.

AFP journalists saw at least three rockets rising into the sky, while eyewitnesses said they saw more. For its part, the Israeli army announced that air defense sirens were activated in urban areas around the Gaza Strip.