BEIT-UL-MUQADDAS – The Palestinians expressed outrage over the incidents in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Beit-ul-Muqaddas on Monday after several people were wounded in clashes.

On Sunday clashes erupted when Muslim worshippers threw stones at a group of Jewish extremists threatening the tense status quo of the site, where only Muslims are allowed to pray.
Israeli police entered the compound soon thereafter firing tear gas and rubber bullets that led to clashes near the 400-year-old walls of the Old City in mostly Arab east Beit-ul-Muqaddas, occupied by Israel in 1967, AFP reported.
The site is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Sacred Noble Sanctuary or al-Haram ash-Sharif.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat called for “urgent intervention” from the United States to get Israel to halt its “attacks” on Al-Aqsa and the two West Bank holy sites.
“These absurd Israeli policies are aimed at destroying international efforts and especially the U.S. administration's efforts to restart a serious and genuine peace process,” he said.
Israeli police on Monday stepped up security around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Beit-ul-Muqaddas, AFP reported.
“We have deployed reinforcements inside the Old City and will continue to limit access to the Temple Mount to Muslim men over the age of 50 as well as women,” Jerusalem police spokesman Shmulik Ben Rubi told AFP. The compound will also be open to tourists “like any normal day,” he added.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that seven people had been arrested, and that two of his men were hurt, while Palestinian sources said at least 15 people were injured in the confrontations.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is the holiest site in the world for Jews and the third holiest for Muslims after Mecca and Medina. It has been a tinderbox for Israeli-Palestinian violence for decades.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, and the head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), likewise warned of dangerous repercussions.
“Israel's provocative aggressions on Al-Aqsa would have dangerous repercussions” and could threaten regional peace efforts, the king said.
On Monday, Shmuel Rabinovitch, the rabbi for the Western Wall, a Jewish pilgrimage site adjacent to the site, sought to defuse tensions by reminding Jews that they are forbidden from entering the site for religious reasons.
“The Halacha (Jewish religious law) forbids Jews from entering the Temple Mount. There is no reason to fear that Jews will enter, not only for political and security reasons, but for religious reasons,” he told military radio.
Jews are forbidden from entering for fear they would profane the “Holy of Holies” the inner sanctum of the Second Temple that is believed to have stood on the site before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
The latest clashes came after a week of protests in the West Bank town of Hebron over an Israeli plan to include two contested holy sites in the occupied territory in a national heritage renovation plan.
The plan, which also includes Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, has infuriated Palestinians and been criticized by the United States as a “provocative” act.
Photo: Tourists visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's old city on October 26, 2009. (Getty Images)