Ninety thousand throng Jerusalem mosque for Ramadan (AFP)
3 minutes ago
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Ninety thousand Muslims attended the first prayers of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday amid tight security, police said.
The Israeli authorities deployed thousands of police but reported no incidents in the Holy City.
"Everything was calm," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
He said, however, that a few dozen Palestinians hurled rocks at Israeli security forces who refused to let them through a checkpoint between the occupied West Bank to Jerusalem.
No one was injured in the incident, Rosenfeld said.
Palestinians from the West Bank are generally not allowed to enter Israel or east Jerusalem, which was seized and annexed by the Jewish State in 1967.
The defence ministry has eased the restrictions to allow Palestinians to pray in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound during the fasting month of Ramadan.
Married men over 50 and women over 45 have free access to the mosque compound, and those aged 30 to 45 can join them if they obtain a special permit issued by Israeli military authorities.
The compound is known as Al-Haram Al-Sharif to Muslims and is Islam's third holiest site after the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina.
Jews refer to the same area as the Temple Mount, the location of the Second Jewish Temple razed by the Romans in 70 AD and Judaism's holiest site.
