Illegal Settlers Storm Aqsa Mosque under Israeli Forces’ Protection

TEHRAN (IQNA) – Witnesses said that a large number of settlers, backed by a heavy presence of Israeli Occupation police, stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem on Sunday morning and performed rituals.

The Palestinian News Agency, WAFA, reported that the settlers entered the compound in groups through the Moroccan Gate and carried out various rituals under police protection.

The incursion came days after Israel's hardline minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the compound and claimed that Israel was "in charge" amid months of escalating tension and violence.

Ben-Gvir entered the holy site of al-Aqsa Mosque through the Moroccan Gate last Sunday, with the provocative causing a deluge of condemnations from across the Arab and Muslim world.

Hardline Israeli legislators and extremist settlers regularly storm the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied city, a desecratory move that infuriates Palestinians. Such mass settler break-ins almost always take place at the behest of Tel Aviv-backed temple groups and under the auspices of the Israeli police in al-Quds.

The al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which sits just above the Western Wall plaza, houses both the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Israeli regime enables the Jewish visitation of al-Aqsa despite the fact that an agreement signed between Israel and the Jordanian government in the wake of Israel’s occupation of East al-Quds in 1967 prohibits non-Muslim worship at the compound.

Source: agencies