The Israeli Police acknowledges that it used “too much” force to evict worshipers from the Al Aqsa Mosque

9 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The chief commissioner of the Israeli Police, Kobi Shabtai, has acknowledged this Sunday that the agents used “too much” force to evict the faithful entrenched in the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan.

The agents used violence on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday in an operation against “rioters”, but the images showed the police beating faithful sitting peacefully in the vicinity of the mosque, the third holiest place in the Muslim religion.

The images have gone around the world and provoked condemnation from many countries in the Arab and Islamic world and armed groups have used this incident to incite attacks against Israel.

Shabtai defended this Sunday in an interview with Israeli public television Kan the decision to enter the mosque and stressed that there were some 400 rioters entrenched with weapons inside the temple.

“Most of the people went to pray and have freedom of worship, but unfortunately a handful of young people managed to set the area on fire and we responded accordingly,” he argued. She has also stressed that those who were inside the mosque had fireworks and stones.

However, he has acknowledged that the agents used “too much” force. “Am I happy with the footage? No. We’re investigating the incident. We’re going to learn from it. We’re going to understand what happened, but in the end everyone saw a brief moment of a bigger picture where a huge, huge number of officers came in and acted respectfully,” Shabtai said.

Another senior Israeli official has pointed out in statements to Channel 12 on condition of anonymity the “enormous damage” that these images of Israeli police beating Muslim faithful have caused Israel, but has argued that “there was no other option” than to enter the mosque . In particular, he has asked to review what happened since the police had been warned to act with restraint.