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- Fatah calls on Palestinians to escalate popular struggle over Temple Mount site
Fatah calls on Palestinians to escalate popular struggle over Temple Mount site
The organization is also making preparations to join 28 international organizations
The deputy secretary-general of the central committee of the Fatah movement, Sabri Saidam, announced on Tuesday that they had decided to call on Palestinians to hold prayers in public squares rather than mosques on Friday.
He also said that the organization was making preparations to join 28 international organizations and to approach the International Criminal Court in the The Hague, Israel's Walla news site reports.
Hundreds of worshipers gathered on Tuesday evening for a prayer rally outside the Lions' Gate in Jerusalem. Many worshipers are still boycotting the flashpoint site despite the removal of metal detectors and new security cameras after more than a week of clashes.
"What we want and what we demand is for everything to return how it was before July 14," Mohammed Hijazi, who came from Acre in northern Israel to join the protests, told the AFP news agency.
"When that happens we are ready to return to enter the Al-Aqsa mosque to pray to God Almighty."
Israeli police officers dismantled the metal detectors at the Temple Mount site, known as Haram al-Sharif to Muslims, after the security cabinet late on Monday accepted the recommendations of the country's security services to deploy technologically advanced cameras instead.
Islamic Waqf officials who administer the holy site ascended on Tuesday to determine if the Israeli security measures had been removed.
Israel put up the metal detectors on the Temple Mount following a July 14 terror attack which left two Israeli policemen dead. In response to the perceived change in the status quo at the site, Muslims have boycotted prayers and protests have broken out across the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
In addition, three Israelis were killed and one seriously injured when a Palestinian entered a family home in a West Bank settlement and stabbed them.
The decision to remove the metal detectors follows talks between Netanyahu and King Abdullah II of Jordan, the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.
It also comes after one of US President Donald Trump's top aides, Jason Greenblatt, arrived in Israel for talks over the crisis and with the UN Middle East envoy warning of the dangers of a further escalation.