Israel girding for feared Friday flare-ups in tense Jerusalem, West Bank

Israeli security forces were gearing up for possible unrest in East Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank on Friday afternoon, following a week of violence between Jewish extremists and Palestinians in the flashpoint Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and other parts of the capital.

Police bolstered Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem’s Old City and the Damascus Gate area with additional officers and Border Police troops, after Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held a Thursday assessment on the tensions, the Kan public broadcaster reported.

“We fear a flare-up in Sheikh Jarrah tomorrow after Friday prayers,” a source familiar with Israel’s thinking told the network. On social media, Palestinians have reportedly called for mass Friday prayers to be held in the neighborhood.

Police have had an increased presence in the flashpoint neighborhood since the beginning of the week after clashes were touched off by the alleged weekend firebombing of a home where a Jewish family lives.

Sheikh Jarrah, a majority Palestinian neighborhood also home to a number of Israeli Jewish families, is regularly a focus of protests due to a push by some right-wing Israelis to evict Palestinian families from homes they say were owned by Jews before 1947.

Political leaders fear the clashes in Sheikh Jarrah may once again snowball into open fighting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In May, the pending evictions of several Palestinian families from the neighborhood helped fuel clashes in Jerusalem that kicked off an 11-day conflict between Israel and the Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group, as well as deadly bouts of street violence between Arabs and Jews inside Israel.

Hamas on Sunday warned of a “severe” response following clashes in Sheikh Jarrah, though tensions there have largely calmed since Tuesday.

Tensions are liable to flare across the capital, though. On Thursday afternoon, three people were wounded in a brawl between Israeli Jews and Palestinians in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Footage from the scene showed a Palestinian man with a head wound and stun grenades going off near a row of shops outside the Damascus Gate.

שער שכם קטטה בין יהודים לערבים pic.twitter.com/PK1WXqPbcF

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According to police, the apparent brawl began inside the Old City and progressed toward the area of Damascus Gate before officers managed to separate the two sides.

Medics said that two of those wounded were taken for treatment with minor injuries, and a third was treated on the scene.

One person was arrested and others were detained as police investigated the incident.

In the West Bank, Israel Defense Forces troops were readying for potential violence at the evacuated illegal outpost of Evyatar, after both right- and left-wing activists planned protests at the site.

Palestinians from the neighboring village of Beita have also been holding near-weekly protests for the past few months against the illegal outpost’s establishment on what they say is private Palestinian land. At least eight Palestinians have been killed in those clashes.

The IDF bolstered troops in the area to prevent Israelis from reaching the hill, the Walla news site reported. According to the report, the military was also bracing for potential shooting attacks in other areas of the West Bank, following the killing of three alleged members of a terror cell responsible for a string of attacks, during a rare daytime operation in Nablus last week.

An apparent fourth member of the cell who was not present during the incident, has since been seen in images posted on Palestinian media outlets surrounded by several masked armed Palestinians.

#صورة للمطارد إبراهيم النابلسي يتوسط مجموعة من المسلحين في #نابلس، فجر اليوم، إبراهيم هو الناجي من عملية الاغتيال التي جرت قبل أيام في نابلس وراح ضحيتها ثلاثة شهداء من عناصر كتائب شهـداء الأقصى. pic.twitter.com/2uJJiKEnwl

— Newpress | نيو برس (@NewpressPs) February 17, 2022
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.