Israeli police closed and cancelled Friday noon prayers in the Al-Aqsa mosque and briefly detained Jerusalem\u2019s top Muslim cleric after three Palestinians and two Israeli police officers were killed in a shootout in the mosque compound.<\/p>\n
Sheikh Mohammad Ahmed Hussein, who decried the mosque closure, was taken into custody from the Bab Al-Asbat area (Lion\u2019s Gate) after leading an open-air prayer nearby.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsraeli police detained my father in a violent manner and took him to unknown destination,\u201d said Omar, the grand mufti\u2019s son.<\/p>\n
Hussein was later released on $2,800 bail.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera\u2019s Harry Fawcett, reporting from Jerusalem\u2019s Old City, said it was the first time in decades that the compound closed for prayers on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course this has the potential to increase tensions among the about 10,000 Palestinians who normally come here for worship,\u201d Fawcett said.<\/p>\n
Sheikh Omar Keswani, a religious official at Al-Aqsa, decried the closure and cancellation of Friday prayers.<\/p>\n
\u201cForbidding the Friday prayer is an unfair procedure,\u201d Keswani told Al Jazeera. \u201cWhat happened earlier is now being taken advantage of by the Israeli right to impose a new reality in Al-Aqsa mosque.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haj Khalil Abu Elsheikh, 77, travelled 100km from Beer-sheva to attend Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa mosque.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israeli police closed and cancelled Friday noon prayers in the Al-Aqsa mosque and briefly detained Jerusalem\u2019s top Muslim cleric after three Palestinians and two Israeli police officers were killed in a shootout in the mosque compound. Sheikh Mohammad Ahmed Hussein, who decried the mosque closure, was taken into custody from the Bab Al-Asbat area (Lion\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[439],"class_list":["post-4180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-israel-shuts-down-al-aqsa-mosque"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}