While daily protests in East Jerusalem were triggered by the brutal July 2 burning alive of a Palestinian teenager from Shuafat, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the emotional trigger for Palestinians has and continues to be the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Daily attempts by radical Israeli Jews to enter the Muslim holy place and lay Jewish claims to it continue to produce raw anger and rage.
In their efforts to quell Palestinian protests while adhering to the demands of extremists to further encroach on the mosque site, Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers have run into an unshakable and growing source of resistance.