How Events Prior To October 7, 2023 led to Oct. 7 attack
Some homes were damaged, but no casualties were reported.
Demanding that Israel remove its police from Al-Aqsa and Sheikh Jarrah, Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, set a 6 p.m. (1500 GMT) deadline for the forces to be withdrawn.
Even as the marchers were diverted toward Jaffa Gate, sirens sounded alerting Israelis to incoming rockets from Gaza, forcing the marchers and other Israelis to flee for cover in Jerusalem, nearby towns and in Israeli communities near Gaza.
Israel views all of Jerusalem as its capital, including the eastern part that it annexed after the 1967 war in a move that has not won international recognition. Palestinians want East Jerusalem for the capital of a state they seek in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Tension had been building for weeks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, amid clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters prompting international concern that events could spiral out of control.
Monday began with early-morning confrontations at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the heart of Jerusalem’s walled Old City on the compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary - the most sensitive site in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said more than 300 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli police, who fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas in the compound. Police said 21 officers were hurt in the skirmishes.
The upsurge in violence came as Israel celebrated “Jerusalem Day”, marking its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
In an effort to defuse tensions, police changed the route of a traditional Jerusalem Day march, in which thousands of Israeli flag-waving Jewish youth were due to walk through the Old City near Damascus Gate, a flashpoint in recent weeks.
But although the trouble had died down by mid-morning, there were other focal points of tension, including the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem just north of the Old City where several Palestinian families face eviction from homes claimed by Jewish settlers in a long-running legal case.
Demanding that Israel remove its police from Al-Aqsa and Sheikh Jarrah, Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, set a 6 p.m. (1500 GMT) deadline for the forces to be withdrawn.
Even as the marchers were diverted toward Jaffa Gate, sirens sounded alerting Israelis to incoming rockets from Gaza, forcing the marchers and other Israelis to flee for cover in Jerusalem, nearby towns and in Israeli communities near Gaza.
Israel views all of Jerusalem as its capital, including the eastern part that it annexed after the 1967 war in a move that has not won international recognition. Palestinians want East Jerusalem for the capital of a state they seek in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Tension had been building for weeks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, amid clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters prompting international concern that events could spiral out of control.
Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group claimed responsibility for the rocket fire on Jerusalem.
Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, said it had launched “a rocket strike against the enemy in the occupied Jerusalem in response to their crimes and aggression against the holy city and its aggression against our people in Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Aqsa mosque.”
In response, Netanyahu said: “The terrorist organisations crossed a red line on Jerusalem Day and attacked us, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.”
He added: “Israel will respond very forcefully. We will not tolerate attacks on our territory, our capital, our citizens and our soldiers. Whoever strikes us will pay a heavy price.”
VIOLENCE AROUND AL-AQSA MOSQUE
For Hamas, some commentators said, its challenge to Israel was a sign to Palestinians that it rather than Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was now calling the shots in holding Israel accountable for events in Jerusalem.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus said that at least six of the rockets fired from Gaza were launched towards Jerusalem’s outskirts, where a house was hit. No casualties were reported.
“We have started to attack Hamas military targets,” Conricus said in a briefing to reporters, putting no timeframe on any Israeli offensive. “Hamas will pay a heavy price.”
He said the military was looking into reports that children had been killed.
“We had multiple events of rockets fired by Gaza terrorists falling short. This might be the same,” Conricus said.
Along the fortified Gaza-Israeli border, a Palestinian anti-tank missile fired from the tiny coastal territory struck a civilian vehicle, injuring one Israeli, he said.
After learning of the deaths in Gaza, President Abbas decided to cancel celebrations of the upcoming Eid El-Fitr that marks the end of Ramadan, and limit them to religious rituals only, according to a statement published by the official WAFA news agency.
The report said he also decided to lower flags to half-mast “to mourn the souls of the martyrs of our people who were killed in the Israeli bombardment on Gaza Strip.”
International efforts to stem the violence appeared to have already begun. A Palestinian official told Reuters that Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations, which have mediated truces between Israel and Hamas in the past, were in contact with the group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh.
"Swatting the Hornet's Nest"
It is essential that any interested observer understand what "Swatting the Hornet's Nest" means and how Israeli Prime Ministers have traditionally used this same old technique of "Swatting the Hornet's Nest" to initiate Israeli war on Palestinians by instigating Hamas into attacking Israel.
Swatting the Al Aqsa Mosque
Whenever an Israeli Prime Minister wants to start a war on Hamas the PM simply directs the IDF, Israeli police and wild settlers to storm the Al Aqsa mosque and beat, hogtie, and arrest worshippers - as Netanyahu and his crew did on Sept. 17, 2023 just days before the October 7 attack.
Again, the October 7 attacks did not occur in a vacuum, but as a direct result of Netanyahu's mosque raids and Netanyahu ignoring Hamas warning Netanyahu FOR TWO YEARS TO STOP THE MOSQUE RAIDS OR ELSE! They even sent Netanyahu a video depicting what Hamas would to Israel if Netanyahu didn't stop his mosque raids, beatings and arrests.
Israeli police forcibly remove Muslims from their Al Aqsa mosque to allow Zionist settlers to haul a goat inside, cut the goat's throat and make a blood sacrifice inside the mosque to taunt Palestinians and Hamas.
It is essential for the observer to realize that YEARS WORTH of Netanyahu's mosque raids and the IDF kidnapping Palestinian men, women and children and holding them hostage in Israeli jails and prisons WAS THE DRIVING FORCE behind Hamas October 7 attack.
Says who? Says Hamas before and after the October 7 attack.
September 17, 2023 - Al Jazeera
Israeli forces attack Palestinian worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque
Dozens of Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque on last day of Rosh Hashanah under the protection of occupation forces, the latter assaulting Palestinian worshippers.
Israeli forces have attacked Palestinian worshippers at Bab as-Silsila, one of the main entrances to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, according to local sources.
Israeli forces imposed tight security measures on Sunday, ejecting worshippers from Al-Aqsa Mosque and intensifying their presence around it, denying access to any Palestinian below the age of 50,
to clear the way for Israeli settlers on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
Understanding October 7, 2023
Understanding events leading to October 7, 2023.
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