Streets ablaze during clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces outside the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem's Old City on Thursday. (Ahmad Gharabli, AFP, Getty Images)
Islamic militants fired at least 36 short-range rockets into Southern Israel overnight, as a second night of street demonstrations around the Old City of Jerusalem devolved into riots. The Israeli military (IDF) reported that six of the rockets fired were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, while dozens of rockets impacted open areas of the so-called Gaza Envelope, the area of Israel bordering the Gaza Strip which is at greatest risk of short range rockets and other threats from Gaza. Thousands of Israelis sheltered-in-place overnight as air raid sirens sounded to the north and east of Gaza. There were no casualties, and only superficial damage to some structures. The IDF responded with air and tank strikes on rocket launch sites and underground facilities managed by Hamas, the jihadist party and militia which controls the Gaza Strip. No reports were published regarding damage or casualties in Gaza as a result of the strikes.
The Gaza rocket fire came after a week of simmering tensions around the Old City of Jerusalem boiled over into open confrontation between security forces, Arab Jerusalemites and nativist Jewish parties on Thursday night. After the assault of several Orthodox Jews by Arab youth near the Damascus Gate was published on TikTok earlier this week, bands of Lehaava members (who oppose Jewish-Arab assimilation) marched through Downtown Jerusalem, and dozens of Arabs were physically assaulted around the Old City. Groups of Arabs began physically assaulting Jews in return, and a full-blown confrontation between the groups was certain on Thursday, except for the swift intervention of Jerusalem police to keep both sides apart. Street violence continued on Shabbat (Friday) night, as hundreds of young Arab men took to the streets in East Jerusalem to demonstrate. Some set fires, defaced property, and attacked Jerusalem riot police around the Damascus Gate, resulting in dozens of injuries and arrests.
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As always, tensions in Jerusalem quickly spilled over into the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. After Friday afternoon mosque services, thousands of Palestinians marched throughout the West Bank, confronting Israeli security forces in the traditional “hot spots” of Jenin, Nasrallah, Qalqiliya City, and others. Israeli forces responded with crowd control measures, including tear gas. An umbrella organization of militant groups in the Gaza Strip announced that they “cannot be silent [regarding] the ongoing barbaric Zionist aggression against our people in Jerusalem" promising that they "will open the gates of hell." The statement came just hours before the rocket fire began. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group warned that Israeli infringement upon the al-Aqsa Mosque, located on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, would be a “red line,” and would draw a severe response.
We call upon the global Maranatha family to join us in urgent intercession for the Peace of Jerusalem and the Nation of Israel. We pray for Israeli authorities to be granted divine wisdom in de-escalating the violence. We pray for divine restraint of jihadist organizations which harbor a demonic hatred of the Jewish people and the eternal covenant. And as always, we pray that upheaval and violence in the Land of Promise would unlock new doors for the proclamation of the Good News of the Prince of Peace, who makes “one new man” out of Jew and Gentile in His Body.
Maranatha.
