Israeli warplanes and artillery struck targets in Syria following rare rocket fire from the north-eastern neighbour, as Jewish-Muslim tensions reached a peak at a volatile Jerusalem shrine with simultaneous religious rituals.
Thousands of Jewish worshippers gathered at the city’s Western Wall on Sunday, 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.
Israeli officials say they have no intention of changing long-standing arrangements that allow Jews to visit, but not pray in the Muslim-administered site.
However, the country is now governed by the most right-wing government in its history, with ultra-nationalists who seek changes in the arrangements in senior positions.
Tensions have soared in the past week at the flashpoint shrine after an Israeli police raid on the mosque.
On several occasions, Palestinians have barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque with stones and firecrackers, demanding the right to pray there overnight, something Israel has in the past only allowed during the last 10 days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Police removed them by force, detaining hundreds and leaving dozens injured.
The violence at the shrine triggered rocket fire by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, starting Wednesday, and Israeli air strikes targeted both areas.
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, saying it was retaliating for the Al-Aqsa raids.
Israel responded with artillery fire into the area in Syria from where the rockets were fired.
In addition to the cross-border fighting, three people were killed over the weekend in Palestinian attacks in Israel and the occupied West Bank.
Hundreds of people, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, attended the funeral for two British-Israeli sisters, Maia and Rina Dee, who were killed in a shooting on Friday in the West Bank.
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 on Friday in a suspected car-ramming on Tel Aviv’s beachside promenade.
