May 5, 2024
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli warplanes and artillery struck targets in Syria after militants fired rockets from the northeastern neighbor, as Jewish-Muslim tensions reached a peak Sunday at a volatile Jerusalem shrine with simultaneous religious rituals.
Thousands of Jewish worshippers gathered at the city's Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, for a mass priestly benediction prayer service for the Passover holiday. At the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a walled esplanade above the Western Wall, hundreds of Palestinians performed prayers as part of observances during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Hundreds of Jews also visited the Al-Aqsa compound under heavy police guard Sunday, to whistles and religious chants from Palestinians protesting their presence. By sundown, the observances had passed without serious incident.
Late on Saturday and early Sunday, militants in Syria fired rockets in two salvos toward Israel and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. A Damascus-based Palestinian group loyal to the Syrian government claimed responsibility for the first round of rockets.
In the first salvo, one rocket landed in a field in the Golan Heights. Fragments of another destroyed missile fell into Jordanian territory near the Syrian border, Jordan’s military reported. In the second round, two of the rockets crossed the border into Israel, with one being intercepted and the second landing in an open area, the Israeli military said.
Israel responded with artillery fire into the area in Syria from where the rockets were fired. Later, the military said Israeli fighter jets attacked Syrian army sites, including a compound of Syria’s 4th Division and radar and artillery posts.
In addition to the cross-border fighting, three people were killed over the weekend in Palestinian attacks in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hundreds of people, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, attended the funeral for two British-Israeli sisters, Maia Dee, 20, and Rina Dee, 15, who were killed in a shooting Friday in the West Bank.
They were buried following an emotional ceremony in the Jewish settlement of Kfar Etzion in the West Bank. As the two bodies were brought into the room, one of their sisters threw herself down and hugged the covered bodies. Their mother, who was also shot in the attack, remains hospitalized in critical condition.
“May we and no one else in the whole world ever know so much sorrow. Amen,” said their father, Lee Dee.
An Italian tourist, Alessandro Parini, 35, a lawyer from Rome, had just arrived in the city a few hours earlier with some friends for a brief Easter holiday. He was killed Friday in a suspected car-ramming on Tel Aviv's beachside promenade.
