JERUSALEM, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Clashes between Muslim worshippers and Israeli police broke out in East Jerusalem on Tuesday night, for a third consecutive day, amidst tensions sparked by metal detectors installed at a Muslim shrine.
The clashes erupted after tens of Muslims held their evening pray outside the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, in an act of protest against metal detectors and CCTVs installed by Israel on Sunday.
"At the end of the prayer, some of the worshippers started to hurl stones and bottles at the police. A force of police and Border Police dispersed them using means (for dispersing demonstrations)," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
Palestinian media reported that "dozens" of protesters were injured during the clashes. According to Samri, two policemen were injured.
Clashes erupted also in Ras al-Amud, a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, where youths hurled stones at the police, according to Samri.
The hilltop walled compound is Islam's third holiest site. Muslims revere it as the Noble Sanctuary and Jews as the Temple Mount. Jews see the site as the place of their historic temples, the last of which was ruined by the Romans in 70 A.D.
Israel occupied and subsequently annexed the area in 1967. But due to its special sensitivity, the Muslim Waqf was put in charge of running the site.
Under a long-held status quo, Israeli Jews are allowed to visit the site but not to pray there. In recent months, far-right Israeli lawmakers renewed their calls to change the status quo and to lift the restrictions on Jewish prays, escalating the tensions in and around the compound.
Israel says it implemented the new measures after three Palestinian citizens of Israel carried out a shooting attack near the gates of the site on Friday, killing two policemen. The assailants were shot dead by the police.
However, the move triggers an uproar in the Muslim world. The Palestinians accuse Israel of attempting to expand its control over the Muslim-run site.
Over the past three days, worshippers held prayers outside the compound after clerics of the mosque called on a protest against the new measures.
