Israeli police kill man at Jerusalem holy site

JERUSALEM — Israeli police shot and killed a man who allegedly tried to steal an officer’s weapons at a Jerusalem burning site on Friday night, police said.

Police said the man killed was 26 and came from an Arab village in southern Israel.

Authorities said the incident in Jerusalem’s Old City occurred when officers detained the man for questioning outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which is the third shrine the holiest in Islam.

Footage shared widely on social media shows Israeli police deploying en masse in the alleys and gates leading to the compound after the shooting. Scuffles have broken out between police and Palestinian vendors and worshipers who spend the night praying at the mosque during the holy month of Ramadan.

More than 200,000 Palestinians had gathered earlier for the Friday midday prayer at the compound and the ceremony ended without the usual friction with Israeli police.

The hilltop complex is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, and incidents in previous years have escalated into clashes in the West Bank and fighting between Israel and Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip.

Since last spring, violence between Israel and the Palestinians has been high. Eighty-six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli or settler fire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks killed 15 Israelis during the same period.

Israel says most of those killed were militants. But young stone throwers protesting the police incursions and people not involved in the clashes were also killed.

Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East War. The Palestinians seek these territories for their future independent state.