JERUSALEM (AP) – Three Palestinians opened fire on Israelis near a major Jerusalem holy site Friday, wounding three before fleeing into the sacred compound where they were killed in a gunfight with security forces, police said.
The rare gunfight took place inside a sacred hilltop compound in Jerusalem, known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary. The compound is the holiest site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
The site has been a flashpoint for violence in the past, with friction there sparking major rounds of Israeli-Palestinian violence, including a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation that lasted several years.
Police said the site was cleared of people after the attack and will be closed for prayers Friday – the highlight of the Muslim religious week. It typically draws tens of thousands of worshippers who flock to the compound from Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
It marked only the third time since Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war that authorities ordered the Muslim-administered compound closed, said Ikrema Sabri, a prayer leader at the holy site.