90,000 throng Al-Aqsa mosque for Friday prayers

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Ninety thousand Muslims attended the first Friday prayers of Ramazan at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City amid tight security, police said. Thousands of policemen were deployed and no incident was reported in the Holy City, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP. He said, however, a few dozen Palestinians hurled rocks at Israeli security forces who refused to let them through a checkpoint between the occupied West Bank to Jerusalem. No one was injured in the incident, Rosenfeld said. Palestinians from the West Bank are generally not allowed to enter Israel or east Jerusalem, which was seized and annexed by the Jewish State in 1967. The defence ministry has eased the restrictions to allow Palestinians to pray in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound during Ramazan. Married men over 50 and women over 45 have free access to the mosque compound, and those aged 30 to 45 can join them if they obtain a special permit issued by Israeli military authorities.

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