Where is al aqsa mosque

Israeli government allowing Jews to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, threatening a longstanding agreement not to. Two Palestinians, including year-old boy shot in the head by Israeli forces, are in a critical condition. Palestinians, legal experts, activists note worrying rise in number of minors being arrested during police crackdown. Israeli police launch wave of arrests targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel who took part in recent rallies.

The Jewish state was given 55 percent of the land, and the remaining 45 percent was for a Palestinian state. Jerusalem, which houses the al-Aqsa compound, belonged to the international community under the administration of the UN. It was granted this special status for its importance to the three Abrahamic religions. The first Arab-Israeli war broke out in after Israel declared statehood, capturing some 78 percent of the land, with the remaining areas of the West Bank , East Jerusalem and Gaza coming under Egyptian and Jordanian control.

The illegal Israeli control of East Jerusalem, including the Old City, violates several principles of international law, which outlines that an occupying power does not have sovereignty in the territory it occupies.

Over the years, the Israeli government has taken further steps towards controlling and Judaising the Old City and East Jerusalem as a whole. Palestinians in Jerusalem, who number around ,, hold only permanent residency status, not citizenship, despite being born there — in contrast with Jews who are born in the city. Israel has also built at least 12 fortified Jewish-only illegal settlements in East Jerusalem, housing some , Israelis, while rejecting Palestinian building permits and demolishing their homes as punishment for building illegally.

Jews believe the compound is where the Biblical Jewish temples once stood, but Jewish law and the Israeli Rabbinate forbid Jews from entering the compound and praying there, as it is considered too holy to tread upon. Since , Jordan and Israel agreed that the Waqf, or the Islamic trust, would have control over matters inside the compound, while Israel would control external security.

Non-Muslims would be allowed onto the site during visiting hours, but would not be allowed to pray there. Such groups are funded by members of the Israeli government, though it claims a desire to maintain the status quo at the site. Today, Israeli forces routinely allow groups, some in the hundreds, of Jewish settlers who live in occupied Palestinian territories to descend on the al-Aqsa compound under police and army protection, stirring Palestinian fears of an Israeli takeover of the compound.

The League of Arab States, or Arab League, called on the international community to intervene to prevent any evictions. Israel's Supreme Court will hold a hearing on the long-running legal case on Monday. Tension has been high throughout the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Before the latest violence in the Al-Aqsa compound, there were Palestinian protests over Israeli barricades erected outside Jerusalem's Old City.

There has been nightly unrest over possible Palestinian evictions in nearby Sheikh Jarrah. Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, two Palestinians were shot dead after firing at an Israeli military base on Friday. Earlier in the week, a Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli religious student and a Palestinian teenager was killed in clashes with Israeli forces searching for him. The international calls for calm and restraint show recognition of the dangers if this escalation continues. And there is deep concern about what could happen on Monday.

The annual celebration of the capture of the east of the city during the Middle East War includes a flag march in the Old City that typically leads to clashes with local Palestinians. Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since the Middle East war and considers the entire city its capital, though this is not recognised by the vast majority of the international community.

Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the future capital of a hoped-for independent state. Israeli police clash with Palestinians in Jerusalem.