Israeli police arrested more than 350 people early Wednesday after clashes at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque, a police spokesperson said.
In a statement, police said they had "arrested and removed over 350 individuals that violently barricaded" themselves inside the mosque in the Israeli-annexed Old City of east Jerusalem.
Those arrested included "masked individuals, stone and firework hurlers/throwers, and individuals suspected of desecrating the mosque", it said.
Clashes erupted inside the mosque early Wednesday as Israeli police said they had entered to dislodge "agitators" who had fireworks, sticks and stones.
"After many and prolonged attempts to get them out by talking to no avail, police forces were forced to enter the compound in order to get them out with the intentions to allow the Fajr (dawn) prayer and to prevent a violent disturbance," a police statement said.
Police "detained the rioters", who "caused damage to the mosque and desecrated it", police said.
The move was denounced as an "unprecedented crime" by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
The group, which rules the Gaza Strip, called on Palestinians in the West Bank "to go en masse to the Al-Aqsa mosque to defend it".
The mosque compound has previously seen clashes and violence between Palestinians and Israelis, particularly during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which draws tens of thousands of worshippers to Al-Aqsa.
The holy Muslim site is built on top of what Jews call the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site.
The fresh violence comes nearly halfway through Ramadan and as Jews prepare to celebrate Passover from Wednesday evening.
Israeli police have released video footage showing what appear to be fireworks explosions inside the mosque and figures throwing rocks.
Another police video shows riot police with shields advancing through the mosque under a barrage of fireworks explosions.
The footage then shows a barricaded door and boxes of fireworks on a carpet on the floor, as well as police escorting at least five people outside with their hands cuffed behind their backs.
Rockets fired
After the announcement of the clashes at Al-Aqsa, several rockets were fired from the northern Gaza Strip towards Israeli territory, according to AFP journalists and witnesses.
AFP journalists said they saw three rockets fired from afar and witnesses said they saw others, while the Israeli army reported rocket warning sirens had been triggered in several Israeli urban centres around the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army said five rockets fired from the Gaza Strip were intercepted by the aerial defence system around Sderot in southern Israel, and that four others had fallen in uninhabited areas.
Israeli fighter jets later struck two Hamas weapons manufacturing sites in the central Gaza Strip "in response" to the rocket fire, the army said.
The air raids were followed by new rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, and at around 6:15am (0415 GMT), Israeli jets carried out fresh strikes on the territory, according to AFP journalists.
No injuries were reported in the first salvo of strikes.
Earlier in Gaza, dozens of demonstrators took to the streets overnight, burning tyres. "We swear to defend and protect the Al-Aqsa mosque," they said.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been sucked into a spiral of violence since the start of the year after one of the most right-wing governments in Israel's history took office at the end of December.
The conflict has claimed the lives of at least 91 Palestinians, 15 Israelis and one Ukrainian since January, according to an AFP tally based on official sources from both sides.
On the Palestinian side, the figures include combatants as well as civilians. On the Israeli side, they include two members of the Arab minority.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
