Once again Jews visiting their holiest site has angered Palestinian jihadis. The Islamic terror group Hamas fired a rocket on early Thursday after Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and other Israeli Jews visited Jerusalem’s Temple Mount on the Jewish fasting holiday of Tisha B’Av. “Hamas claims to fire rocket from Jenin in response to Ben-Gvir’s visit to Temple Mount,” i24NEWS reported Thursday.
The rocket was fired from the Palestinian Authority-controlled town of Jenin and failed to reach its intended target — Israeli communities living in the Judea and Samaria region. The Hamas-linked “‘al-Ayyash Brigades’ terrorist group claimed to have again fired a rocket toward Israeli territory on Thursday morning,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Kassem described peaceful Jews visiting their holiest site as “raids” on the Temple Mount, and amounted to an “an escalation of the religious war the occupation is waging against Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.” He added that Palestinians “will protect Al-Aqsa’s identity as an Islamic mosque at any cost.”
The Biden State Department joined Hamas and Arab Muslim countries in condemning an Israeli minister’s visit to Judaism’s holiest site. “The U.S. Embassy in Israel condemned the visit, stating that it stands “firmly for the preservation of the historic status quo with respect to the holy sites in Jerusalem,” and that “any unilateral action or rhetoric that jeopardizes the status quo is unacceptable,” the leftwing Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
“Palestinian group claims to fire rocket from Jenin area at northern Israel town,” by Emanuel Fabian, Times of Israel, July 27, 2023:
Palestinians in the northern West Bank attempted to launch a homemade rocket at a nearby Israeli town on Thursday morning, the military said, the latest in a series of mostly unsuccessful attempts.
A group calling itself the Al-Ayyash Battalion — apparently named for a notorious Hamas bombmaker killed by Israel — claimed it had launched the rocket from the Jenin area at the Israeli town of Ram-On, which borders the West Bank security barrier.
A video published by the group on Telegram showed a projectile mounted on a launcher, before it was apparently launched.
The Israel Defense Forces said that troops located the remains of the rocket in Palestinian-controlled territory, near the town of Silat al-Harithiya, saying that it had not crossed the border into Israel. (…)
Al-Ayyash Battalion has claimed to have launched several rockets at settlements and towns in northern Israel in recent months, publishing footage of the attempts.