Israeli forces have repeatedly launched assaults on Palestinian worshippers on the mosque compound in recent times.
Palestinians reacted with fury on Tuesday after far-right Israeli Nationwide Safety Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir entered the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, a transfer seen as a deliberate provocation by an official with an extended historical past of extremism and racist incitement.
In a statement, the Palestinian International Ministry known as Ben-Gvir’s “storming” of Al-Aqsa — Islam’s third-holiest website — an “unprecedented provocation and a harmful escalation of the battle.”
Regardless of vocal warnings from Palestinians in addition to Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, Ben-Gvir — a high member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s newly shaped extremist authorities — visited the positioning for roughly quarter-hour Tuesday morning below heavy safety, declaring that “our authorities won’t give up to the threats of Hamas.”
In response, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem told Al Jazeera that Ben-Gvir’s transfer represents “a continuation of the Zionist occupation’s aggression towards our sanctities and its struggle on its Arab id.”
The outlet famous that “Ben-Gvir has lengthy known as for higher Jewish entry to the holy website, which is seen by Palestinians as provocative and as a possible precursor to Israel taking full management over the compound.”
“Main rabbis forbid Jews from praying on the positioning,” Al Jazeera added. “Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s entrance to the positioning in 2000 sparked the second Palestinian Intifada or rebellion.”
Center East Eye observed that “since Israel occupied the positioning following the 1967 Center East struggle, Jewish prayer on the website has been forbidden, although far-right settlers equivalent to Ben-Gvir (a few of whom wish to demolish Al-Aqsa and change it with a 3rd Jewish temple) have regularly prayed there below strict safety in recent times.”
Israeli forces have repeatedly launched attacks on Palestinian worshipers on the compound in recent years. In 2021, Israeli forces’ violent raids at Al-Aqsa and Hamas’ response spurred a lethal 11-day Israeli assault on the occupied Gaza Strip.
Zvika Fogel, a far-right Israeli Knesset member, told an Israeli information outlet that if Hamas responds to Ben-Gvir’s transfer with rocket hearth, “If it’s as much as me, Gaza burns.”
Officers from Jordan and the United Arab Emirates joined Palestinians in condemning Ben-Gvir’s determination to enter the Al-Aqsa compound.
“Jordan condemns within the severest of phrases the storming of the Aqsa mosque and violating its sanctity,” the Jordanian International Ministry mentioned in a press release.
Netanyahu reportedly postponed a visit to the UAE that was deliberate for subsequent week following Ben-Gvir’s look on the Al-Aqsa compound on Tuesday.
“This isn’t the primary time that Ben-Gvir has stormed Al-Aqsa,” Center East Eye reported. “In Could final 12 months, accompanied by his spouse and son, Ben-Gvir posted an image calling for the destruction of the positioning to ‘establish a synagogue on the mountain.’”
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, govt director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), known as on the Biden administration to “strongly condemn the Netanyahu authorities’s makes an attempt to incite racial and spiritual battle at some of the sacred and delicate locations on the planet.”
“Netanyahu’s nationwide safety minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is a far-right extremist, a genocidal racist, and a terrorist sympathizer,” Mitchell mentioned in a press release Tuesday.
