Police officers closed Jerusalem’s Temple Mount to Jewish and other visitors on April 13, after Arabs atop the compound began rioting, seemingly in part at the behest of Hamas.

Hamas Movement has called for defending al-Aqsa Mosque in light of Israeli settlers’ intention to break into the mosque next Monday…Al-Aqsa Mosque is wholly owned by Muslims and it will never be temporally or spatially divided, the statement stressed. Hamas called on the PA to stop negotiations with the occupation in response to Israeli continued attacks and Judaization policy. The Islamic movement also called for intensifying Palestinian presence in al-Aqsa Mosque in face of all Israeli attempts to storm it.

Hamas was among those talking up a supposed Israeli plan to storm the mount on the eve of the Passover holiday.

As a result on April 13, supposed worshipers in the Muslim mosque launched an attack on Israeli police officers.

Muslim worshipers threw stones, firecrackers and Molotov cocktails at police forces on Temple Mount on Sunday morning. A police force that entered the holy site stopped the rioters and dispersed the crowd. Two policemen were lightly injured and one woman was arrested for disruption of public order.

The Arab world in general uses the Temple Mount as a prop in its attempts to condemn Israel.

Hamas in particular takes advantage of the sensitivities surrounding the mount to try to control the masses in the West Bank from its main power base in Gaza. The organization uses all of the media at its disposal to perpetuate myths about Israeli intentions on the holy site urging action to defend “al-Aqsa.”

[Photo: David Katz / The Israel Project]