Thousands march in Jerusalem

Tens of thousands of Palestinians performed prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem on Friday afternoon, later marching through the streets of the Old City in protest against Israeli policies banning Muslim worshipers.

The director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque told Ma'an that the number of worshipers at the mosque reached 60,000 including thousands of worshipers who had traveled to attend from the West Bank.

The week was one of the first in months in which Israeli restrictions on Palestinian access to the mosque were almost entirely lifted, allowing tens of thousands to flock to the holy compound.

The director of the mosque said eight busloads carrying Palestinians from the northern West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin alone arrived at the mosque for prayers.

Following prayers, worshipers organized a march in support of Palestinian access to the mosque and in protest against policies that have been repeatedly imposed on Palestinians to prevent them from reaching Al-Aqsa.

Friday's lifting of Israeli restrictions comes amid months and years of increasingly severe restrictions on Palestinian entry to the mosque that intensified over summer and fall, sparking daily clashes in the area with authorities and raising tensions across Jerusalem.

According to a 1967 agreement Israeli authorities made after occupying Jerusalem, only Muslim prayer is allowed in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound while Jewish prayer is allowed at the Western Wall next door.

However, in recent months right-wing Jewish groups who have previously called for the destruction of the mosque and the construction of a Jewish temple on the site have repeatedly entered the area under heavy police escort.

The visits, combined with proposals for a Knesset vote to divide the site between Jews and Muslims, have outraged the Palestinian public, which sees the encroachment on Al-Aqsa as symptomatic of the wider denial of their rights in historic Palestine as well as intense discrimination in housing, employment, and social services by Israeli authorities.

The compound, which sits just above the Western Wall plaza, houses both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque and is the third holiest site in Islam.

It is also venerated as Judaism's most holy place as it sits where Jews believe the First and Second Temples once stood. The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

Al-Aqsa is located in East Jerusalem, a part of the internationally recognized Palestinian territories that have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.