ISRAELI police stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem again yesterday as Palestinian protesters barricaded themselves inside.

Young Palestinians occupied the mosque, one of the holiest sites in both Islam and Judaism, defying an order permitting only men over the age of 50 from entering the compound for prayers.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri claimed the demonstrators had stockpiled petrol bombs, fireworks and stones to throw as missiles.

Police had tried to negotiate with the Waqf — the Islamic religious authority that oversees the compound — to call for calm, but talks failed and police entered the compound to seize the “dangerous devices intended to harm visitors to the site and police and endanger their lives,” she said.

Mosque director Omar Kiswani blamed Israeli police for the violence.

“We asked the police yesterday not to allow any non-Muslim in the compound in these tense days, but police didn’t respond positively to our demands,” he said, adding that several people had suffered from tear gas inhalation.

nThe International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) yesterday condemned an “appalling” attack by Israeli troops on two Agence France-Presse reporters covering a Palestinian protest near the West Bank town of Nablus.

Soldiers threw Italian cameraman Andrea Bernardi and his Palestinian colleague photographer Abbas Momani to the ground, breaking their cameras and confiscating other equipment.

Palestinian Journalists Syndicate president and IFJ executive committee member Abdel Nasser Najjar called the assault “further evidence of the Israeli government’s attacks against foreign and local journalists on the territories for the sole purpose of hiding Israel’s atrocities committed against Palestinians.”