Turkey tells Israel to ‘stop attacking Palestinians’

Turkey on Monday appealed to Israel to "stop attacking Palestinians," as clashes raged at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said hundreds had been wounded in new clashes on Monday that came ahead of a planned march marking Israel's 1967 takeover of the holy city.

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Hundreds wounded in new Jerusalem clashes

Scores injured as Israeli police Palestinians clash at Jerusalem s Al Aqsa Mosque

The clashes were the latest in days of the worst such disturbances in Jerusalem since 2017.

"Israel must stop attacking Palestinians in Jerusalem and prevent the occupiers/settlers from entering the Holy Mosque. Israel bears sole responsibility for any violence," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Twitter.

Israeli policemen aim their weapons at protesters during clashes with Palestinians at Al Aqsa Mosque. Reuters

"The world must act to stop this never-ending Israeli aggression against unarmed civilians in their own land."

Erdogan himself had on Saturday called Israel a "cruel terrorist state" that was attacking Palestinians "in a savage manner devoid of ethics".

Relations between Israel and Turkey have been strained since a Turkish NGO oversaw a flotilla of ships that tried to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2010.

Hundreds of people demonstrated in support of Palestinians on Sunday evening outside Israel's consulate in Istanbul.

The Turkish police did not intervene despite a ban on large public gatherings in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Agence France-Presse