It isn't true.
Israeli police did some crowd control. This is hardly newsworthy. But Palestinians are trying to exaggerate everything Israeli security services do to make them look aeful.
One particularly absurd example comes from Ramallah News, in a headline that says, "WATCH: the occupation attacks the 'Holy Fire' Saturday celebrations in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre."
The video, from the official Wafa news agency, shows an utterly boring scene that looks like any security guards at any event with more than a few hundred people.
No pushing or shoving. No raised voices. Nothing. (There was one minor incident of shoving when dome pilgrims decided to break through the barricade.)
But it is headline-worthy for Palestinians who want to create a story of Israeli evil, so the facts are secondary to the narrative.
Here's the really ironic part: Even if you claim that Israel is occupying Jerusalem, the security of the event is the responsibility of the occupying force!
Thousands of people want to jam into a tiny space to see this annual event, and it has been chaotic, dangerous and even deadly in the past, especially under Muslim rule. Here is the description from a AP dispatch datelined April 2, 1955:
Under international law, an occupier (and even more so a sovereign state) has a primary obligation to ensure public health and safety.
The 1907 Hague Regulations says that the occupier "shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety." This is a primary responsibility. If Israel wouldn't bring police to maintain order at an event that could easily get out of hand in occupied territory, it would be violating international law!
But doing basic, polite and unobtrusive crowd control is being blown up into a huge violation of human rights.
The only reason for the crowd control to begin with is that Israel does not want a repeat of the disaster that happened last year in Meron when 45 Jews were trampled to death.
Israel-haters, though, want to see bloodshed - that they can blame on Israel. And if Israel prevents the bloodshed, then they blame Israel for maintaining order.
