By Biodun Busari

Israeli police invaded the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and arrested Palestinian worshippers in a violent raid in occupied East Jerusalem at dawn on Wednesday.

The witnesses in recounting their ordeal said the Israeli forces arrested at least 400 Palestinians who remain in custody as of the time of filing this report, Al-Jazeera said.

The worshippers are being held at a police station in Atarot in occupied East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian officials.

Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces used excessive force including stun grenades and tear gas, causing suffocation injuries to the worshippers, and beatings with batons and rifles.

Al-Jazeera said the Palestinian Red Crescent reported there were 12 injuries, including three people who were transferred to the hospital.

It also disclosed in a statement that Israeli forces banned its medics from reaching Al-Aqsa.

The raids continued until Wednesday morning when Israeli forces were once again seen assaulting and pushing Palestinians out of the mosque compound and preventing them from praying before Israelis were allowed in under police protection.

“I was sitting on a chair reciting (Quran),” an elderly woman told the Reuters news agency while sitting outside the mosque, struggling to catch her breath. “They hurled stun grenades, one of them hit my chest,” she said as she began to cry.

Israeli police said in a statement that they were forced to enter the compound after “masked agitators” locked themselves inside the mosque with fireworks, sticks and stones.

“When the police entered, stones were thrown at them and fireworks were fired from inside the mosque by a large group of agitators,” the statement said, adding that a police officer was wounded in the leg.

Tension has already been high in occupied East Jerusalem and West Bank for months. There are fears of further violence as important religious festivals – the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover – converge.