Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Sheikh Mohammed Hussein said that the Israeli police erected checkpoints at the entrances of Old City and barred Palestinians from entering the area to hold Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque Complex.

Hussein said that the security measures prevented thousands from Arab cities and East Jerusalem from the prayers.

He added that the Israeli restriction aim to allow Jewish worshippers to hold prayers at the Buraq Wall (Western Wall) later on the day on the occasion of the Yom Kippur.

The Israeli Army announced that in accordance with Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s announcement, a full closure was placed on the West Bank. The closure came into effect at midnight and will be lifted on Saturday at midnight.

According to the statement, passage to and from the West Bank will be allowed only for humanitarian and medical purposes, and all exceptions will require approval from the Israeli civil administration, an Israeli military department responsible for coordinating civil issues between Israeli government and the Palestinians.

The statement added that the security presence in Jerusalem was also beefed up since early Friday in preparation for Yom Kippur.

Israeli police said they have been holding talks with Arab leaders inside Israel in a bid to defuse tensions during the holiday, after the burning of a mosque in the Touba Zangariyya, a Bedouin village in Upper-Galilee.

The police added that their officers would also guard places of friction between Jewish occupiers in Palestinian territories, and particularly Al-Ibrahimi Mosque (the Cave of the Patriarchs) in West Bank city of Hebron.

Jewish occupiers’ violence has continued to increase in recent months, mostly within the West Bank but inside Israel as well. Attacks on Palestinian property —notably olive trees, agricultural land and mosques—and physical attacks have intensified.

Tensions in the run up to the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN and the demolition of three homes in the Migron settlement outpost on Sept. 5 are the most recent reasons for the spike in occupiers’ violence.

On Thursday, the Palestinian Minister of Settlements and Separation Wall Affairs, Maher Ghnaim, said that a recent upsurge in anti-Palestinian occupier violence in the West Bank “coincided with increased assaults by the occupation against our people.”

Ghnaim said that this indicated the attacks were being “coordinated and programmed” between the settlers and the army.

The minister said that the Israeli soldiers were not only protecting the violent occupier groups, but were also providing escape routes for them after attacks on Palestinians.