Police on the Temple Mount before Sukkot
Police on the Temple Mount before SukkotJerusalem Police

Masked Arab rioters threw fireworks and rocks at security forces on the Temple Mount on Wednesday, in what has become a tradition of riotous violence before the major Jewish holiday of Sukkot. 

Riot police pushed the attackers back by setting up roadblocks, but it was not enough to deter the unrest. 

The rioters continued to throw stones, bricks and iron bars at police from inside the Al-Aqsa mosque, while shooting fireworks at police and spraying an unidentified flammable liquid on them. 

They also threw a Molotov cocktail at police, which ignited, wounded four officers lightly.

The police have restrained the rioters and removed all barriers protecting the entrance to the mosque. The wounded policemen were treated on the spot. 

Five Arabs have now been arrested after the eruption, Arutz Sheva has learned. 

"We will continue to show zero tolerance for any attempt to violate the public order, and we will arrest them and bring them to justice," a police spokesperson stated Wednesday morning. 

Arab rioting is all too common on the Temple Mount, which is Judaism's holiest site - and the historical site of national Jewish worship and celebration on major holidays such as Sukkot. 

The Jordanian Waqf has had de facto rule of the Mount since the 1967 Six-Day War, and keeps an iron fist on the Temple Mount and its activities; Jews face constant discrimination and violence for visiting the site, and there is a blanket ban on Jewish prayer there. 

Muslims and Christians, however, have free reign to worship at and visit the Mount - the IDF even allowed 500 Gazans to ascend to the Mount as a "gesture" during peace talks with Hamas in Cairo - and the Jerusalem Arab community recently celebrated the Eid al-Adha holiday there on the same day as Yom Kippur. 

Unrest on the Mount has escalated recently, as part of a cycle of chaos and violence in Jerusalem known as the "silent intifada" which has seen terrorism in and around Jerusalem rise by a staggering 509%

Rioting on the Mount has become so prominent that Housing Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) was forced to talk over the sound of explosions during traditional Rosh Hashanah greetings last month.