DaysofPal- The Israeli occupation authorities and Jewish settlers have intensified their attacks on the Aqsa Mosque in October 2024, according to the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs. The number of incursions has surpassed 23, and the number of intruders has increased as well.
The Ministry pointed out that over 23 settlers, who were heavily guarded by occupation forces, broke into the Aqsa Mosque during Jewish holidays.
9,721 settlers forced their way into the Mosque during the same reported period.
A communal prostration and religious rites were also performed in the eastern section of the Mosque in honor of Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year.
While occupation forces turned Jerusalem and the Old City into military barracks and increased their level of alert, settlers issued calls for mass incursions during the holidays and offered free transportation to take them to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The report noted that on October 17, extremist Minister Itamar Ben Gvir entered Aqsa Mosque on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, making provocative statements aimed at altering the status quo in Jerusalem in the presence of rabbis and settlers.
Additionally, the report highlighted that Israeli forces prevented the call to prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque 95 times in October and closed the mosque for 7 days as part of efforts to impose a temporal and spatial division.
The installation of Israeli flags, tours inside the Ibrahimi Mosque, and the positioning of religious apparatus like tents, Torah stands, and loudspeakers were among the provocative acts by Israeli forces that were documented in the report.
Additionally, it pointed out that the occupation forces continued to impose restrictions at the mosque, allowing the call to prayer at dawn on October 13 after blocking it for 31 days in a row. Attacks on other holy locations were also documented in the report, such as an incursion into the old Marda Mosque in Salfit, where Israeli forces detained worshippers for eight hours, fired gas bombs and bullets, and tampered with the mosque’s contents.
These actions were denounced by the Ministry of Awqaf as an attack on the sanctity of Islamic religious sites and a flagrant breach of its authority, with the intention of imposing a new reality. It urged the international community to act quickly to stop these abuses, which incite Muslim ire and jeopardize Jerusalem’s identity and its Islamic holy sites.
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