Two Palestinians martyred in Gaza explosion

Monitoring Desk

GAZA: At least two Palestinians were martyred on Tuesday by an explosion — of as-yet-unknown origin — that went off in the Gaza Strip’s northern Beit Lahia district.

“The Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza has received the bodies of two martyrs,” Ashraf al-Qudra, a Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman, said in a statement.

Al-Qudra went on to say that the two men had been attacked by an Israeli drone while riding together through Beit Lahia on a single motorcycle.

The ministry has since identified the two slain men as Hasan Ghazi Nasrallah and Mustafa Sultan.

In a statement released shortly afterward, however, the Israeli army denied any involvement in the incident.

Earlier Tuesday, four Palestinians were injured by Israeli gunfire near the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel, according to al-Qudra, who said, at least one of those injured was in critical condition.

Also on Tuesday, scores of Palestinian youths hurled stones at Israeli soldiers stationed at the Gaza border. Soldiers responded with live fire, rubber bullets and teargas. Tension has mounted in the Palestinian territories since last week’s controversial decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Jerusalem remains at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict, with Palestinians hoping that East Jerusalem — occupied by Israel since 1967 — might eventually serve as the capital of a Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, Dozens of Jewish settlers accompanied by Israeli security personnel forced their way into Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday, according to a statement by Firas al-Dibis, a Palestinian official with Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf, which oversees the city’s holy sites.

Local eyewitnesses appeared to confirm the report, saying that Jewish settlers had forced their way into the complex where they perform Talmudic rituals in the mosque’s courtyard near the Old City’s Al-Silsile Gate.

Palestinian officials say they expect more settler incursions into the holy site during the eight-day Jewish Hanukkah holiday, which began on Tuesday and runs till Dec. 20.

In late 2015, repeated incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by Jewish settlers and Israeli security personnel sparked a months-long spate of Israeli-Palestinian violence.