The Temple Mount was closed to visitors early Wednesday morning after Palestinian rioters attacked security forces near the Mughrabi Gate, the entrance used by non-Muslim visitors.
Masked rioters threw stones and set off fireworks, prompting police to use crowd dispersal methods, including stun grenades, a police spokesman confirmed.
Israel Radio reported that a chase ensued between the police and the rioters on the Temple Mount compound. Police chased the rioters back into the Al Aqsa Mosque, a rarely used measure.
Entering several meters into the mosque, police discovered a ready to use stash of Molotov cocktails, stones and bottles to carry out acts of violence against Israeli police.
Several dozen Jews were barred from entering the Temple Mount on Wednesday while the riots were in progress. The group had assembled for a prayer vigil for prominent Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick, who was shot last week in an assassination attempt.
Police later opened the site to all visitors.
The violent clashes come one day after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party called for violence against all Jews who visit the Temple Mount.
On Tuesday, Fatah posted on its official Facebook page a “call to arms” against “all Jerusalem residents and Arab Israelis.” Fatah warned of a plan that would involve the “consolidated storming of Al-Aqsa a week after the assassination attempt of the extremist rabbi Yehuda Glick.”
The call by Fatah came in response to a Hebrew poster calling on Jews to ascend the Temple Mount on Wednesday in a state of ritual purity “for the sake and health of Rabbi Yehuda Glick.”
“The terrorist sought to murder Yehuda and halt his blessed and vigorous activities for the return of Israel to the Temple Mount,” the poster stated. “We will not succumb to terror, we will not let terror win.”
Since Glick’s shooting, several right-wing members of Knesset have visited the Temple Mount, including Moshe Feiglin (Likud), Tzipi Hotoveli (Likud), and Jewish Home deputy Shuli Moalem-Refaeli.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on members of Knesset to calm tension and refrain from ascending the Temple Mount.
