2 Israeli police officers dead in attack at Jerusalem’s holiest site

TEL AVIV — Two Israeli police officers attacked on Friday at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount have died in hospital, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said on Twitter.

The three men who opened fire at the security forces were shot dead as they attempted to flee towards the nearby al-Aqsa mosque.

“The three terrorists that carried out attack in old city Jerusalem were from Ul al Ahum. Armed with weapons and shot and killed by police,” Rosenfeld tweeted.

Local media reported that Israeli passports were found on the assailants and that one of them hailed from an Arab village in the north of the country.

Jerusalem’s holiest site is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

Under a status quo agreement at the site, only Muslims may pray on the platform housing the al-Aqsa Mosque as well as the ruins of the Biblical Jewish Temple.

Israeli police said the site would be closed for the day, meaning that Muslims would not be able to attend Friday prayers there.

More than 40 Israelis and some 300 Palestinians have been killed in similar attacks after a dispute nearly two years ago over the right to worship at the Temple Mount triggered a wave of violence.