JERUSALEM — The Israeli police shot useless an Arab man on Saturday morning in entrance of an entrance to probably the most outstanding holy web site in Jerusalem, in an episode that risked escalating tensions within the metropolis at an already risky time.

The police stated in a press release that officers had detained the person over a separate incident, earlier than he seized and fired a police officer’s gun, main them to kill him in self-defense. The police described the person as a terrorist.

In a conflicting account, Palestinian information media reported that he had been killed throughout a scuffle after he had intervened to forestall the assault of an Arab lady. Neither model could possibly be instantly corroborated.

The taking pictures occurred on the threshold to the Aqsa Mosque compound, a web site sacred to each Jews and Muslims. The location has been used as a mosque for greater than a millennium however is thought to Jews because the Temple Mount, as a result of it was the situation in antiquity of two historical Jewish temples.

The useless man was recognized by the police as a 26-year-old from Hura, an Arab city in southern Israel.

His taking pictures risked setting off a brand new spherical of unrest on the web site, which each Israelis and Palestinians think about a necessary a part of their nationwide narratives. Clashes steadily happen there throughout moments of wider tensions within the area — significantly through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began per week and a half in the past.

Confrontations on the web site in Could 2021 contributed to the outbreak of an 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist militia that controls the Gaza Strip.

For months, diplomats and officers have warned of the potential for one other flare-up on the compound throughout Passover and Ramadan this yr, which this coming week will converge, for less than the second time in three many years. The overlapping festivals will drive extra Jews and Muslims to the location than standard, elevating the chance of confrontation — significantly if the police proceed to permit Jewish activists to wish there, in contravention of a decades-old conference.

Israel captured the location from Jordan through the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967 and later annexed it. For years, the Israeli authorities prevented Jews from praying there, leery of angering Muslims. However lately, the police have begun to tacitly enable it, heightening Palestinian resentment.

Jews think about it the holiest spot in Judaism, whereas Muslims consider it was the place from which the Prophet Muhammad rose to heaven.