Jerusalem calm after flashpoint clashes

Source Agence France Press

Jerusalem's Old City remained calm on Monday after several people were wounded the day before in clashes at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a flashpoint site sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Shops throughout the Muslim quarter of the Old City reopened after staging a partial strike following the violence, in which 17 Israeli police and around a dozen Palestinians were injured. The Hamas government ruling Gaza called for an emergency meeting of a special committee set up in 1975 by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to preserve the Arabic-Islamic identity of the Holy City. Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya made the call to King Mohammed VI of Morocco who chairs the Al-Qods committee saying it should "defend Al-Aqsa mosque ... against the aggressions of Jews," a statement said on Monday. Meanwhile, 2,000 Palestinians held a protest outside parliament house in Gaza at the call of Hamas "for the defence of Al-Aqsa."