Israeli police are restricting Jewish access to part of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Honenu legal aid organization said Friday afternoon, during the first intermediate day of the Passover festival.
Honenu claimed to have received multiple reports Friday from Orthodox Jews attempting to reach the Western Wall Plaza via Hagai Street that they have been denied entry by Border Police officers, while Arabs, non-Jewish tourists, and others who are not visibly Jewish were permitted to continue on their way.
Also known as Al Wad Street, Hagai Street runs north-to-south through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, reaching the entrance of the Western Wall Plaza. The street is heavily used by haredi Jewish visitors from northern Jerusalem who visit the Western Wall by foot.
Police have set up checkpoints in the Muslim Quarter, with officers reportedly barring Jews from access to parts of the Quarter, including Hagai Street.
One witness, a haredi man named Yehezkel, said that he first encounter a police barricade at Damascus Gate. Arabs and non-Jewish tourists were permitted to pass, he said, while visibly Jewish pedestrians were barred.
After being told to reach the Western Wall via a different route, Yehezkel was again stopped by police who barred his path.
One officer admitted that police were under orders not to permit Orthodox Jews or any other visibly Jewish visitors to travel through the area.
“It pains me that only haredi Jews are barred from passing through,” Yehezkel said. “There are dozens of busloads of tourists who pass through freely. A secular Israeli Jew with no outward signs of being Jewish won’t be identified, so he gets to go through freely as well, but if a Jew comes dressed as a haredi, they don’t let him pass.”
“The soldiers said that anyone who is visibly Jewish or haredi cannot be allowed to pass. It is just disgusting.”
Earlier on Friday, Arab rioters on the Temple Mount hurled stones at the Mughrabi Gate, which is the primary access point for non-Muslim visitors to the holy site.
Arab rioters clashed with police on the Temple Mount on Wednesday and Thursday as well, the latest violence at the holy site during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Over the weekend, Hamas terrorists launched rockets towards Israel from both the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
Last night, an IDF soldier was wounded in a terrorist shooting attack north of Jerusalem, and on Thursday, an elderly Jewish man was bludgeoned by an Arab terrorist brandishing a metal rod in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Late Friday morning, two sisters in their 20s from the town of Efrat were murdered in a terrorist shooting attack in the Jordan Valley. Their mother was wounded and is in critical condition.