The Israeli government must start “shifting in its approach” amid widespread concerns about attempts at judicial reform and as tensions with Palestinians escalate in the region, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says.
Tensions in Israel are high as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempts to govern a coalition that is viewed as the nation’s most right-wing government ever to hold office.
While violence between Israelis and Palestinians has surged over the last year, reports of a violent Israeli police raid at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City early Wednesday have made international headlines. Palestinian militants in Gaza responded with rocket fire on southern Israel, prompting repeated Israeli airstrikes.
The violence, which comes as Muslims mark the holy month of Ramadan and Jews prepare to mark Passover, has raised fears of a wider conflagration.
Trudeau, who was in Alliston, Ont., for a budget announcement on Wednesday, raised the topic without being asked about it by reporters at the event. He said Israelis and Palestinians deserve to celebrate their holidays in peace, and that the government deplores the current violence.
But the prime minister also specifically pointed to the current government, which has faced an uproar from Israelis over recent months over a controversial planned overhaul of Israel’s judicial system. Those plans have since been put on hold following massive protests, with plans to revisit them in June.
“We’re extremely concerned with the inflamed rhetoric coming out of the Israeli government. We’re concerned about the judicial reforms that have an awful lot of Israelis concerned as well. We’re concerned by the violence around the Al-Aqsa Mosque during this holy month,” Trudeau said.
“We need to see Israel, the Israeli government, shifting in its approach, and Canada is saying that as a dear and close and steadfast friend to Israel.”
Trudeau’s comments come after Liberal MP Salma Zahid criticized the government’s response to the Israeli government in a Twitter post. Her tweet included a video that appears to show Israeli police storming the Al-Aqsa Mosque, firing stun grenades at Palestinians who hurled stones and firecrackers.
Zahid, who chairs the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group, said “Canada cannot stand by and issue bland statements anymore,” and “either we stand for human rights or we don’t.”
Trudeau said there needs to be a de-escalation in violence.
“We are deeply concerned around the direction that the Israeli government has been taking. At the same time, we absolutely, unequivocally condemn the rocket attacks from militants in Gaza,” Trudeau said.
“We need to see people living in peace and prosperity side by side. We need a return to opportunity and hope around stability in the Middle East for all who live there, and Canada will continue to be a voice for peace, for stability, for prosperity, for everyone in the region.”
Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel was working to “calm tensions” at the mosque.
The Associated Press reported that people who were detained at the compound and later released said police used batons, chairs, rifles and whatever else they could find to strike Palestinians, including women and children, who responded by hurling stones and setting off firecrackers that they’d brought to evening prayers for fear of possible clashes. Outside the mosque’s gate, police dispersed crowds of young men with stun grenades and rubber bullets, according to the report.
The mosque sits in a hilltop compound sacred to both Jews and Muslims, and conflicting claims over it have spilled into violence before, including a bloody 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza.
Al-Aqsa is the third-holiest site in Islam and stands in a spot known to Jews as the Temple Mount, which is the holiest site in Judaism.
Since Ramadan began March 22, scores of Muslim worshippers have repeatedly tried to stay overnight in the mosque, a practice that is typically permitted only during the last 10 days of the month-long holiday.
Israeli police have entered nightly to evict the worshippers.
Tensions have been further heightened by calls from Jewish ultranationalists to carry out a ritual slaughter of a goat in the compound, as happened in ancient times.
Israel bars ritual slaughter on the site, but calls by Jewish extremists to revive the practice, including offers of cash rewards to anyone who even attempts to bring an animal into the compound, have amplified fears among Muslims of possible attempts to take over the site.
Jews are permitted to visit the compound, but not pray there, under long-standing agreements. But such visits, which have grown in numbers in recent years, have often raised tensions, particularly because some Jews are often seen quietly praying.
After some 80,000 people attended evening prayers at the mosque on Tuesday, hundreds of Palestinians barricaded themselves inside overnight to pray. Some said they wanted to ensure religious Jews didn’t carry out animal sacrifices. After they refused to leave, Israeli police moved into the mosque.
Netanyahu repeated Wednesday that he’s committed to preserving the long-standing arrangement at the compound. He described the individuals who locked themselves in the mosque as “extremists” who prevented Muslims from entering the mosque peacefully.
Medics from the Palestinian Red Crescent said at least 50 people were injured. Israeli police said they were not immediately able to confirm the reports and videos showing officers beating Palestinians but said 350 were arrested. They added that one officer was injured in the leg.
Separately, the Israeli military said one soldier was shot and moderately wounded in the occupied West Bank.
At least 88 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed 15 people in the same period.
Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. But stone-throwing youths and bystanders uninvolved in violence were also reportedly among the dead.
All but one of the Israeli dead were civilians.
— with files from The Canadian Press and The Associated Press