After a day of violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces at a Jerusalem flash site, Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations have intensified their mediation between Israel and Hamas in a bid to prevent a new escalation.

At least 152 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli riot police inside the compound of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday.

According to a Reuters report quoting unnamed Palestinian official, Hamas, a ruling terror group in the Gaza Strip, demanded that Israel release some 400 people it detained on Friday, stop ‘provocative visits’ to Al-Aqsa Mosque by Jewish groups and put an end to military incursions into West Bank towns.

In a sign of easing tensions, Israel released all but 100 of those detained, the Palestinians said.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry, referring to the violence in the holy compound, said it “holds Israel fully and directly responsible for this crime and its consequences”.

Last year, nighttime clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police during the Muslim month of fasting and a land dispute in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood sparked an 11-day Israel-Gaza war that saw Hamas launch thousands of rockets into southern Israel, killing 13 people. in Israel. The death toll in the Palestinian coastal enclave stands at more than 250.