AL-QUDS — Israel took the rare and drastic step of barring Palestinians from occupied Jerusalem's Old City on Sunday. The restrictions will be in place for two days, with only Israelis, tourists, residents of the area, business owners and students allowed, police said. Worship at the sensitive Al-Aqsa Mosque compound will be limited to men aged 50 and above. There will be no age restrictions on women, and worshipers will be allowed to enter through one specific gate. The Palestinian government denounced “Israeli escalation” after the announcement of the ban, which Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan called unprecedented. The usually bustling alleyways of the walled Old City were mostly quiet on Sunday morning, with stores closed and hundreds of police guarding entrances. Some shops began gradually opening later in the day. Police fired stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse protesters at one gate. Some 300,000 Palestinians live in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, where the Old City is located. At least 77 Palestinians were wounded from both live rounds and rubber bullets over the past 24 hours, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Sunday. The toll included 18 wounded from live rounds and 59 from rubber bullets, Red Crescent spokeswoman Errab Foqaha said. Another 139 have been treated for tear gas inhalation and six for injuries sustained in beatings by soldiers or settlers, she said. The attacks late Saturday and early Sunday came with Israeli security forces already on alert after recent clashes at the Al-Aqsa compound and surrounding Old City. Clashes broke out in areas including Jenin in the West Bank, where Israeli soldiers raided a refugee camp to arrest a Hamas official, and the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya, where the attacker in Sunday morning's stabbing, identified as Fadi Alloun, was from. There have been fears that the sporadic violence could spin out of control, with some warning of the risk of a third Palestinian intifada, or uprising. Last week, in his address to the UN General Assembly, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he was no longer bound by previous accords with Israel, accusing the Israeli government of violating them. — Agencies
