Roundup: Israeli security forces on high alert for 1st Ramadan Friday prayers

Israeli security forces are on high alert for the first Friday prayers of the month-long Muslim holiday of Ramadan, two days after four Israelis were killed in a Tel Aviv shooting attack.

Thousands of Israeli police officers and border police guards were deployed throughout the city of Jerusalem, focusing specifically on the East Jerusalem areas inhabited mostly by the Palestinians, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.

"The Jerusalem police would act sternly against any source which attempts to violate the order," Samri added.

The focal point of the Friday prayers are at the flashpoint holy site of Temple Mount in East Jerusalem, home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Tens of thousands of Muslim worshipers are set to attend the Friday prayer services at the mount.

The site, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary, has been a source of frequent tensions, as Muslims believe to be the place from where Muhammad ascended to heaven, and Jews believe it is part of the second Jewish temple from antiquity.

It has been a source of strife, as Jews can visit but not pray there, and tensions exacerbated last September, when Jewish and Muslim holidays collided, and clashes ensued. These clashes were followed by a wave of violence throughout the country, which started in October, and had since claimed the lives of 32 Israelis and 205 Palestinians.

Four Israelis were killed and five were injured in moderate to serious condition after two Palestinian gunmen from the southern West Bank shot at them at a cafe in a popular retail and restaurant center in Tel Aviv on Wednesday evening, in one of the deadliest attacks in the current wave of unrest.

Following security consultations, the Israeli Defense Ministry announced on Thursday it is retracting tens of thousands of permits allowing Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to enter Israel to meet their families and visit the Temple Mount.

The permits were delivered a week earlier, as a means of facilitating the Palestinians during Ramadan.

Furthermore, the army would impose a closure starting on Friday and until midnight between Sunday and Monday on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip territories, amid the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, celebrated on Saturday and Sunday.

"In accordance with government directives and the ongoing situation assessment, as of Friday crossings from the Gaza Strip and West Bank territories will be open to Palestinians only in medical and humanitarian cases," a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told Xinhua.

While the closure is imposed amid other measures deployed following the attack, it is also common for the Israeli defense establishment to impose closure on Palestinian territories during Jewish holidays.

The army also announced that it had deployed two additional battalions to the Judea and Samaria (the Jewish biblical name for the West Bank) on Thursday as a result of the attack.

Israeli leaders blame the Palestinian National Authority for incitement to violence amid the wave of unrest, whereas the Palestinians charge it is the result of 49 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, where they wish to establish a state. Endit