Ramadan in Jerusalem: How a shining moment of serenity was lost

Scenes diplomats had worked hard to avoid erupted this week: Israeli police clubbing Ramadan prayergoers, Israeli civilians being killed in the West Bank, viral clips of bound-and-tied Palestinians lying facedown in the venerated Al-Aqsa Mosque, barrages of rockets from Gaza and Lebanon being answered by Israeli airstrikes, access being restricted to Jerusalem holy sites.

The ongoing violence and police crackdowns have ripped up a fragile, hard-negotiated peace – brokered by the United States, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority – that initially allowed tens of thousands to pray and observe their holidays freely as Ramadan, Holy Week, and Passover were set to coincide.

Yet the strife was less a failure of the U.S.-led diplomacy, observers say, than it was the success of extremists and far-right instigators to fan the flames of distrust in a decades-old unsolved conflict.

“Well,” sighs an Arab diplomat close to the talks with Israel over Al-Aqsa access, “the extremists got what they wanted.”

Among the casualties of the rapid deterioration of calm in Israel and the Palestinian territories are the brief harmony enjoyed by followers of the three Abrahamic faiths in Jerusalem and the rare window of joy Ramadan gives to beleaguered Palestinian Muslims, especially in the area around Al-Aqsa, which they regard as a refuge.

As of Friday, behind-the-scenes diplomacy to restore order and facilitate the removal of many of the 2,300 Israeli police in and around Al-Aqsa, among Islam’s holiest sites, had largely failed, with the Israeli government focusing instead on its military response to the cross-border rocket fire.

Dialogue with the Israeli government has “practically been closed shut,” Jordanian sources say.

Friday prayers were held by 90,000 Muslim Jerusalemites without incident at Al-Aqsa, located in a walled, elevated compound revered by Jews as the Temple Mount. A handful of prayergoers cheered Hamas rockets and the West Bank killings.

The restrictions and recriminations ended several days of successful cooperation between Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian officials that facilitated the entry of tens of thousands of Christian and Muslim Palestinians daily from the West Bank (even some from Gaza) to Jerusalem to observe holidays and prayers – some of whom entered the Holy City for the first time in their lives.

Amid a light police presence, last Friday saw 280,000 worshipers fill the mosque compound – the largest number of prayergoers at one time at the site since 1986, according to the Jerusalem Waqf, the organization overseeing the compound, which called it a “historic day.”

Tens of thousands of Palestinian Christians marked Palm Sunday without incident.

Extremist rhetoric

Yet the rhetoric by both far-right Jewish Israelis and the Islamist militant movement Hamas ratcheted up tensions in the days leading up to Passover, which began Wednesday night.

Disagreements began over itikaf, the Islamic practice of sequestering oneself in a mosque overnight and for multiple days for prayer and reflection, mainly observed in the final 10 days of Ramadan to coincide with when Muslims believe the Quran was revealed.

Under an agreement reached between Israel, Palestinians, Jordan, and the Jordan-appointed Jerusalem Waqf, religious authorities closed the mosque compound after final night prayers from 11:00 p.m. until 4:30 a.m. for the first 20 days of Ramadan, only allowing itikaf on the 20th  day, or April 11, onwards.

Yet Hamas immediately jumped on the issue as an attempt by Israelis to regulate Al-Aqsa, calling on Muslims to defy the measure and practice itikaf and camp out in Al-Aqsa every night of the holy month.  

Officials believe it was an attempt by Hamas to incite a clash between worshippers and heavy-handed Israeli police to prove the path of negotiation and diplomacy pursued by its rival Palestinian Authority and Jordan was doomed to failure.

For the first 10 nights of Ramadan, the Waqf managed to convince the handful of stragglers to leave the mosque.

Yet as Passover neared, calls from Hamas to camp out in the compound became louder even as far-right Israelis called on Jews to sacrifice animals at the Temple Mount to “retake” it.

In the lead-up to Passover, Israeli police arrested the head of the Returning to the Mount group calling for the sacrifices as well as several Israelis attempting to bring animals to the holy site, Israeli news reports said. Mainstream rabbis rejected the far-right’s calls to revive the rite.

Yet the arrests failed to assuage Palestinians’ concerns or blunt the sharp messaging by both far-right Messianic Jewish groups and Hamas, which treated Passover sacrifices at the Temple Mount as a certainty.

The presence in the Israeli government of far-right ministers who have called for sacrifices and demolishing Al-Aqsa in the past – including Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is responsible for security on Temple Mount – convinced many Palestinians that an “attack” on the mosque was imminent.

“During Passover, they are going to try to sacrifice goats at Al-Aqsa as a precursor to demolishing the mosque and building the Third Temple. This is what Ben-Gvir has called for,” Mohammed Hussein, a 20-year-old resident of Jerusalem’s Old City, told the Monitor Tuesday.

“We will do everything to stop them.”

Which is why dozens of Palestinian youths holed themselves up inside Al-Aqsa Tuesday night after the last of evening prayers, armed with fireworks and rocks in what they believed was their duty to “defend” the holy site.

When the Waqf failed to persuade the youths to leave, Israeli police broke down the doors and stormed the mosque, firing stun grenades.

The raid damaged several ancient doors, broke stained-glass windows, damaged offices, burnt the mosque carpet, ended in more than 350 arrests, and led Hamas and Israel to exchange fire.  

On Wednesday, Israeli police and soldiers did not wait for evening prayers to conclude, storming the mosque and attacking actual prayergoers, deepening the crisis. Rockets were fired again from Gaza and from Lebanon, followed by more Israeli airstrikes. No injuries were reported.

On Thursday and Friday, skirmishes with prayergoers continued during the day. Israel restricted the access of Palestinians under the age of 40 and deployed hundreds of police and soldiers within the mosque compound, which the Waqf said transformed the holy site into a “military barracks.”

A shooting attack in the West Bank killed a pair of Israeli sisters in the Jordan Valley and wounded their mother.

Fleeting joy

The violence and crackdowns closed a rare window of joy for Muslim Palestinians who, up until Tuesday evening, were marking a holy month of prayer, communal meals, and night celebrations.

Daily, hundreds of families from Jerusalem and the West Bank came to the mosque for daylong outings, bringing blankets, meals, and toys, and holding picnics at the compound, giving it the atmosphere of a block party.

On Monday, between prayers, dozens of children and more than a few adults kicked soccer balls in the plazas and treed areas around Al-Aqsa and the ornate Dome of the Rock.

As sunset neared, pickup soccer games grew in size, toddlers floated toy planes in the air, Jerusalem youths palmed volleyballs back and forth, and adults and children skipped rope.  

“Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Noble Sanctuary is our only breathing space as Jerusalemites in the Old City,” Mohammed Farawi explains from his home adjacent to the compound’s wall in the Old City. “Ramadan is the only time of the year that we can take full breaths. If there are no restrictions.”

At sunset, strangers gathered next to each other for shared iftar meals, brought in by themselves or charity kitchens.

After sunset prayers, Jerusalemites distributed sweets and coffee to the thousands of out-of-towners. At the end of tarawih evening prayers, Old City residents stationed at the Bab Hutta gate gave out cups of coffee and sahlab sweetened milk to exiting prayergoers as they walked on to Damascus Gate, where food vendors, clowns, music, and horse and camel rides awaited.

Rare respite

“Most days and months out of the year we are divided by checkpoints, the separation wall, and by settlements,” says Umm Khalil, who came with her four children and husband from Ramallah, speaking at the mosque compound Monday. 

“Ramadan is a time we feel united as Palestinians and as Muslims. For a few days, we are a reunited family.”

The Al-Aqsa compound, particularly during Ramadan, is one of the few places offering Palestinians a respite.

“We are targeted and harassed by the Israeli police and settlers when we pick olives, we are stopped at checkpoints when we try to go to work, we are raided by the military when we are sitting in our homes,” says Bashar, who came from Nablus in the West Bank.

“But when we are within the walls of Al-Aqsa we are safe, we are protected, we can be ourselves.” he said. “While we are here, not only do we feel close to our religion, but we feel we are living a normal life.”

Which is why when Israeli police raided the mosque compound this week, Palestinians saw the incursions not only as a desecration of a holy site, but an intrusion on their lone safe space in an occupied land.

“We are ready to give up our lives to defend Al-Aqsa,” says Mr. Hussein, the Jerusalem youth, “because if Al-Aqsa is occupied by police or settlers, our ability to breathe is gone.”