Agencies
Palestinian Territories
Israeli crowds have stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, as well as villages in the occupied West Bank, as they marked a Jewish holiday.
Far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir led a crowd of thousands into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday and performed prayers. Despite Jewish religious rites being banned at the location, Israeli police reportedly offered protection, as well as to illegal settlers involved in violence in the West Bank.
Ben-Gvir promised to “defeat Hamas” in Gaza in a video he filmed during his visit and prayers.
Al-Aqsa is Islam’s third holiest site and a symbol of Palestinian national identity but it is also Judaism’s holiest place. Tisha B’Av is a Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of the site of an ancient temple by the Romans in 70 AD.
Ben-Gvir, who heads a hardline political party on which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government depends, led more than 2,000 Israelis through the compound singing Jewish hymns under the protection of Israeli police, an official from the Waqf, the Jordanian body that is custodian of the site, told AFP.
“Minister Ben-Gvir, instead of maintaining the status quo at the mosque is supervising the Judaisation operation and trying to change the situation inside Al-Aqsa Mosque,” the official said.
Israeli police also “imposed restrictions” on Muslim worshippers trying to enter the mosque, he added.
Minister of Negev and Galilee Affairs Yitzhak Wasserlauf and other members of the Israeli Knesset reportedly joined the march.
In the West Bank, Israeli settlers mounted a series of marches to mark the day, according to local media.
“[The settlers] are using the fact that there is a religious holiday and religious commemoration to … lay claim to more Palestinian land,” Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim reported from Ramallah.
She said that people in one village, at-Tawani, had told her that it was the largest settler invasion that the community has seen thus far, in what has become a regular occurrence.
Tension and violence between Isreal settlers, police and the military on one side, and Palestinian armed groups and civilians on the other, has spiked since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October.
