• It came on a day Israel observes as Jerusalem Day, and marked the fourth day of clashes at one of the most revered and the most contested sites of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
  
• The stand-off came at the end of a week of tensions over the eviction of Palestinian residents from two neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, to make way for Jewish settlers.

The mosque & the Mount

• The Al-Aqsa is located on a plaza at Temple Mount, which is known in Islam as Haram-e-Sharif.
• The Mount is also Judaism’s holiest site.
• The most imposing structure on the compound is the Dome of the Rock, with its golden dome.
• The Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall sacred to Jews, is one side of the retaining wall of the Al-Aqsa compound.
• Al-Aqsa is central to the rival claims over Jerusalem.
• Both Israel and Palestine have declared it their capital. In July 1980, the Israeli Parliament passed the Jerusalem Law declaring it the country’s capital.
• Palestinians declared Jerusalem the capital of the putative state of Palestine by a law passed by the Palestinian Authority in 2000.
• The 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence also declared Jerusalem as the capital.
• For the present, the Palestinian Authority has its headquarters in Ramallah.