Israel orders deportation of two Turks after Jerusalem arrests

Israel has ordered the deportation of two of three Turks who were briefly arrested during Palestinian demonstrations last week after US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the Interior Ministry said on Monday according to a Reuters report.

The three were detained on Friday on suspicion of assaulting Israeli police near a Al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians see as the capital of their own future state. An Israeli court freed them without charges on Saturday.

An Interior Ministry spokeswoman said one of the men was scheduled for deportation later on Monday and another on Saturday. She said both had entered Israel on Belgian passports.

Israeli police had described the three as Turkish tourists.

Read: Israel arrests 16 year old Palestinian girl who forced them off her land

A photograph circulated on social media showed them among a group of fez-wearing men and boys outside Al-Aqsa. One is seen wearing a Turkish flag T-shirt and waving a Palestinian flag, while two hold up pictures of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan has been vocal in opposing Trump’s Jerusalem move, which reversed decades of US policy over the status of a city whose eastern sector Israel captured in the 1967 war and which is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims.

The Interior Ministry spokeswoman said she had no information on the third Turk who had been arrested in the case.

Read: 900 wounded, 4 killed incl wheelchair-bound Gazan as Israel cracks down on protesters

Tension has risen across the Palestinian territories since US President Donald Trump’s decision to officially recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Most countries consider East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after capturing it in a 1967 war, to be occupied territory, and say the status of the city should be left to be decided at future Israeli-Palestinian talks.

While the international community has almost unanimously disagreed with Donald Trump’s announcement, reports suggest that the announcement was done with the pre-agreement of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with the Saudi Arabia going as far as, allegedly, stating to the Palestinian President to accept a village on the outskirts of Jerusalem as the alternative Palestinian capital.

Read: UN General Assembly votes to condemn Trump’s Jerusalem recognition