Al-Aqsa is off limits to non-Muslims for the remainder of Ramadan

 


Before the end of Ramadan, Israel has outlawed non-Muslim visitors to the volatile Al-Aqsa Mosque site in Jerusalem.

Approximately 800 Israelis were allowed to pray in the property on Tuesday morning, the sixth day of Passover, in violation of a long-standing agreement that forbids such activity during the last 10 days of the Muslim holy month. This sparked outcry, and Israeli security officials were forced to take action.

It is still unknown if Israel's extremist settler movement, which is becoming more powerful, would adhere to the Al-Aqsa policy. One of its leaders, the notoriously religious bigot and far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has a criminal record for aiding terrorism and inciting bigotry, condemned the ban. When terrorism attacks us, he declared, "we must strike back with great force and not yield to its whims."

"Israel wants to prove that they are the ones who decide what can and cannot happen at Al-Aqsa," said Sheikh Ekrima Said Sabri, a former grand mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine and the current preacher there, to Arab News. "We see this as an extreme violation and provocation."

Israeli aggression continued unabated in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. During an ambush near the Elon Moreh settlement, the army ambushed a community in Deir Al-Hatab, east of Nablus, killing two Palestinians and injuring a third.



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