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Israeli Police Clash with Palestinians as East Jerusalem Tensions Flare During Ramadan

Israeli police officers walk during clashes with Palestinian protesters, as the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan continues, in Jerusalem, April 24, 2021. (Reuters)
Israeli police officers walk during clashes with Palestinian protesters, as the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan continues, in Jerusalem, April 24, 2021. (Reuters)
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Israeli Police Clash with Palestinians as East Jerusalem Tensions Flare During Ramadan

Israeli police officers walk during clashes with Palestinian protesters, as the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan continues, in Jerusalem, April 24, 2021. (Reuters)
Israeli police officers walk during clashes with Palestinian protesters, as the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan continues, in Jerusalem, April 24, 2021. (Reuters)

East Jerusalem was on edge just after midnight on Saturday as Palestinians faced off with Israeli police in nightly Ramadan clashes that sparked rocket fire by militants in the Gaza Strip and protests in Palestinian towns across the occupied West Bank.

Tension is higher than usual in the holy city following protests on Thursday by Palestinian youth angered with curbs on gathering during the Muslim holy month and by Israelis enraged by recent Palestinian street attacks on religious Jews.

Police mostly succeeded in keeping the demonstrators apart on Thursday, with many of the far-right Israeli participants chanting "Death to Arabs".

But the arrests and injuries raised tensions that spilled over into Friday night and early Saturday, when Palestinian youths again gathered outside the walled Old City and scuffled with hundreds of police in riot gear.

Palestinians pelted stones towards police firing water cannons. Others hurled rocks at an Israeli court building and smashed security cameras.

The Palestine Red Crescent said eight Palestinians had been injured Friday night in clashes with police, with two taken to hospital for treatment.

Jerusalem is at the core of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Palestinians seek to make East Jerusalem capital of a future state in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel claims the whole city, including its eastern sector captured in a 1967 war, as its capital.

Three rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel on Friday night, Israel's military said, soon after Gaza's Hamas rulers and other militants there issued a joint call for Palestinian resistance in Jerusalem.

Two of the rockets exploded near the Israel-Gaza frontier, the military said, and the third was intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome system. There were no reports of injuries.

In the West Bank, Palestinian youth clashed with Israeli troops around military checkpoints near multiple West Bank cities.

Clashes and incidents of violence have occurred nightly in Jerusalem - a city holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews - since the start of Ramadan on April 13.

Palestinians say police have tried to prevent them from holding their usual Ramadan evening gatherings outside Damascus Gate by erecting metal barriers in its amphitheater-style plaza.

Israelis have been incensed by videos on social media showing Palestinian youth striking or otherwise assaulting religious Jews in the city.

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Arab World

Israel Says Searching for Remains of Last Hostage at Northern Gaza Cemetery

Israelis light the 8th candle of Hannukah in Hostage Square holding placards bearing the face of Ran Gvili in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2025, as they call for the return of his remains. (AFP)
Israelis light the 8th candle of Hannukah in Hostage Square holding placards bearing the face of Ran Gvili in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2025, as they call for the return of his remains. (AFP)
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Israel Says Searching for Remains of Last Hostage at Northern Gaza Cemetery

Israelis light the 8th candle of Hannukah in Hostage Square holding placards bearing the face of Ran Gvili in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2025, as they call for the return of his remains. (AFP)
Israelis light the 8th candle of Hannukah in Hostage Square holding placards bearing the face of Ran Gvili in Tel Aviv on December 21, 2025, as they call for the return of his remains. (AFP)

Israeli forces were searching a cemetery in Gaza for the remains of Ran Gvili, the last hostage still held in the Palestinian territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Sunday.

The announcement came shortly after Hamas's armed wing said in a statement that it had provided information on the location of the slain police officer's body.

"The operation is taking place at a cemetery in northern Gaza and involves extensive search efforts, making full use of all available intelligence. This effort will continue for as long as necessary," Netanyahu's office said.

The Israeli military confirmed troops were engaged in a "targeted operation in the area of the Yellow Line in northern Gaza to retrieve the body" of Gvili.

Under a US-brokered ceasefire that came into effect on October 10, Israeli forces have withdrawn to positions in Gaza behind the so-called "Yellow Line", though they remain in control of more than half of the territory.

Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas's Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, had said on Sunday that the group "provided mediators with all the details and information in our possession regarding the location of the captive's body".

Obeida added in his Telegram post that "the enemy (Israel) is currently searching one of the sites based on information transmitted by the Al-Qassam Brigades".

All of the 251 people taken hostage during Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war have since been returned, both living and dead, except for Gvili.

A non-commissioned officer in the Israeli police's elite Yassam unit, Gvili was killed in action on the day of the attack and his body taken to Gaza.

Arab World

Israeli Fire Kills Three in Gaza, as US Seeks to Advance Gaza Deal

Palestinian children play with a wheelchair amid destroyed buildings in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on January 25, 2026. (AFP)
Palestinian children play with a wheelchair amid destroyed buildings in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on January 25, 2026. (AFP)
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Israeli Fire Kills Three in Gaza, as US Seeks to Advance Gaza Deal

Palestinian children play with a wheelchair amid destroyed buildings in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on January 25, 2026. (AFP)
Palestinian children play with a wheelchair amid destroyed buildings in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on January 25, 2026. (AFP)

Israeli fire killed three Palestinians in two separate incidents in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, while an Israeli drone wounded four others in Gaza City, local health authorities said on Sunday.

Medics said Israeli fire killed at least two people east of Tuffah neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip, while a 41-year-old man was killed by Israeli forces in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave.

Earlier medical workers said an Israeli ‌drone exploded ‌on the rooftop of a multi-floor building in ‌Gaza ⁠City, wounding four civilians ‌in the street nearby.

There was no comment by the Israeli military on any of the incidents.

US ENVOYS MEET WITH ISRAEL PM NETANYAHU

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met in Israel on Saturday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mainly to discuss Gaza, Witkoff said on Sunday.

"The discussion was constructive and positive, with both sides aligned on next steps and the importance of ⁠continued cooperation on all matters critical to the region," Witkoff said in a post on X.

Gaza ‌has been reduced to rubble in the ‍war that was triggered by an attack ‍by the Palestinian group Hamas on southern Israel on October ‍7, 2023 in which 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli tallies.

The Gaza health ministry says more than 71,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed by Israeli fire since then. It also says that at least 480 people have been killed by Israeli fire since a ceasefire agreement came into effect last October.

BOTH SIDES TRADE BLAME FOR VIOLATIONS

Israel has said four soldiers ⁠had been killed by militants in Gaza since the ceasefire began. Both sides have traded blame for violations of the truce.

Earlier this month, Washington said the plan had moved into a second phase, in which Israel is expected to withdraw troops further from Gaza, and Hamas is due to yield control of the territory's administration.

Meanwhile, in Khan Younis, more than 100 people attended the funeral of a person killed by Israeli drone fire on Saturday, after holding special prayers in front of his white-shrouded body at the morgue in Nasser Hospital.

"They are liars, there is no ceasefire," said Fares Erheimat, a relative ‌of the dead man, during the funeral.

Arab World

Damascus Opens Humanitarian Corridor to Kurdish-Majority Town

Members of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) arrive in Kobane on January 23, 2026, after withdrawing from areas in eastern Syria. © AFP
Members of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) arrive in Kobane on January 23, 2026, after withdrawing from areas in eastern Syria. © AFP
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Damascus Opens Humanitarian Corridor to Kurdish-Majority Town

Members of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) arrive in Kobane on January 23, 2026, after withdrawing from areas in eastern Syria. © AFP
Members of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) arrive in Kobane on January 23, 2026, after withdrawing from areas in eastern Syria. © AFP

Syria's military said on Sunday it had opened a humanitarian corridor to the Kurdish-majority town of Kobane, filled with people displaced by recent clashes, as a UN convoy carrying life-saving aid headed there.

The aid came as the Syrian government and Kurdish forces extended a ceasefire agreement by 15 days, after Kurdish forces relinquished swathes of territory to government troops.

Earlier this week, residents in Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab in Arabic, told AFP that they lacked food, water and power and that the enclave was flooded with people who had fled the Syrian army's advances.

In a statement, the Syrian military said it was opening two corridors, one to Kobane and another in nearby Hasakeh province to allow "the entry of aid".

Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, representative of the United Nations' refugee agency in Syria, said on X that "thanks to the cooperation with the Syrian government... a convoy of 24 trucks carrying essential food, relief items, and diesel" departed for Kobane "to deliver life-saving and winter assistance to civilians affected by the hostilities".

The town is surrounded by the Turkish border to the north and government forces on all sides. It is around 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the Kurds' stronghold in Syria's far northeast.

Kobane, which Kurdish forces liberated from a lengthy siege by the ISIS group in 2015, became a symbol as their first major victory against ISIS.

On Saturday, Syria's government and Kurdish forces extended their truce with Damascus saying it was intended to support the US transfer of ISIS group detainees from Syria to prisons in Iraq, which started earlier this week.