JERUSALEM — Israel conducted strikes on Syria early Sunday, targeting a military compound and radar and artillery posts after six rockets were launched from the country toward Israeli territory, briefly opening a new flash point as a domestic crisis here simmers.
Explosions were heard from Damascus, the Syrian capital, according to state media, and the Syrian Defense Ministry reported that several munitions were launched from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights toward southern Syria. The ministry said it registered some material losses, but no casualties were reported.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that it launched drone and artillery strikes in retaliation and that it held the Syrian government responsible for everything that occurred on its territory.
While the episode appeared to have been contained, it was another reminder of the many fronts along which Israel’s growing crisis can flare. Since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to office at the start of the year, the most right-wing and religiously conservative government in the country’s history has prompted mass protests in Israeli cities, surging violence in the occupied West Bank, and growing anger across the Middle East as it accelerates the erosion of a decades-long status quo for worshipers at Islamic and Jewish holy sites.
Police raids on al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City last week sparked rocket fire from the occupied Gaza Strip and neighboring Lebanon and retaliatory airstrikes from Israel.
Sunday marks the rare coincidence of the Jewish Passover, Islamic Ramadan and Christian Easter periods, and Israeli police were on high alert across Jerusalem’s checkpoints and holy sites.
As church bells rang out on a warm spring day, residents and tourists streamed in through the Old City’s labyrinthine stone alleyways. Tens of thousands of Jews gathered at the Western Wall for priestly blessings; at al-Aqsa’s gray-domed mosque, Muslim worshipers knelt in solemn prayer.
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Police had stormed the site on consecutive nights last week, detaining hundreds of people and wounding at least 40, as they used beatings, steel-tipped rubber bullets and stun grenades to clear it. They said hundreds of people had locked themselves inside the mosque and were preparing to riot. Worshipers and some human rights observers saw that claim as a pretext to enter the building.
The Holy Esplanade is a potent symbol of religious and political identity for both Israelis and Palestinians.
To Jews, it is known as the Temple Mount, where the faith’s First and Second Temples once stood; to Muslims, it is the Noble Sanctuary, where the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. Informal rules establishing who can pray where — Muslims atop the esplanade, Jews at the Western Wall — have been tested recently by an increase in Jewish prayer on the esplanade and threats by messianic Jewish activists to conduct an animal sacrifice there during Passover.
Early Sunday, Israeli police escorted Jewish worshipers into the compound, video footage showed, as Muslims gathered in prayer.
Israeli diplomats asked Jordan, which has overseen the site since Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, to clear the mosque of some worshipers again this weekend, saying they were “planning to riot.” But by late afternoon, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer recanted that story, CNN reported. “Fortunately today, we didn’t have to go in, because the people who were in there did not go there according to our intelligence to perpetrate violence,” he was quoted as saying.
Jordan had refused the request, warning of disastrous consequences if Israeli forces storm the mosque again. In a phone call Saturday with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the “provocations and threats” made against the status quo at al-Aqsa, according to a readout provided by Turkey. Erdogan said Muslim worshipers should be allowed to conduct their prayer freely and urged a de-escalation in tension during the religious period, according to his office.
Against a tense regional backdrop, Ismail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, arrived in Damascus, Iranian state media reported Sunday.
Israel’s government is facing crises on many fronts, as far-right officials denounced Netanyahu’s response to last week’s cross-border strikes and twin attacks on civilians and anti-government rallies decried his political agenda for the 14th straight week.
The Israeli military also launched airstrikes last week on what it said were Hamas-affiliated targets in Gaza and southern Lebanon after rockets were fired into Israeli airspace from both areas, wounding one civilian and damaging buildings.
Ables reported from Seoul and Sands from London. Suzan Haidamous in Washington contributed to this report.