Arab League Condemns Zionist Aggression against Ibrahimi Mosque
“This aggression comes within the context of the Judaization of the Ibrahimi Mosque after its temporal and spatial division,” said the organization in a statement, according to the Palestinian Information Center.
Zionist officials’ storming of the mosque confirms their insistence on continuing occupation, aggression, racism, and organized terrorism against the Palestinian people, added the statement.
Herzog, head of the Israeli regime, took part in a candle-lighting ceremony at the mosque on Sunday on the occasion of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, despite earlier warnings by Palestinian groups and Muslim leaders.
The League urged the international community to reject such aggression which target Islamic and Christian sanctities and took measures to confront it.
The holy site is revered by Jews and Muslims as the burial site of religious patriarchs. Jews revere the site as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, while Muslims call it the Ibrahimi Mosque, after the patriarch Abraham.
The site has been divided into Jewish and Muslim prayer areas since shortly after a settler opened fire on Muslim worshippers at the shrine in 1994, killing 29 people and wounding more than 100 others.
Hebron is a frequent flashpoint between settlers and Palestinians.
More than 200,000 Palestinians live in the city, along with several hundred ultranationalist Israeli settlers who live in the downtown area in heavily fortified enclaves protected by the military.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war and has established dozens of illegal settlements where nearly 500,000 settlers reside.
The Palestinians want the West Bank as part of their future state and view the illegal settlements as a major obstacle to resolving the conflict.
