OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC)– More than twenty Jewish settlers led by the extremist Rabbi Yehuda Glick stormed on Wednesday morning the Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the Israeli occupation forces and policemen.
Eyewitnesses at the Aqsa Mosque said that the Jerusalemite worshipers and students at the Aqsa confronted the settlers and forced them to leave the mosque.
Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage said in a statement that a large Israeli police force special units and intelligence elements have surrounded the gates of the mosque since the early morning hours and trapped the worshipers who managed nonetheless to expel the settlers out of the Aqsa courtyards.
A number of Jewish extremist organizations have called for breaking into the Aqsa Mosque to commemorate the eight-day holiday of Hanukkah also known as the Festival of Lights.
The organization of Women for the Temple announced that Jewish women accompanied by children will break into the Aqsa Mosque while the Hliba Organization announced that it will provide special buses for each group of settlers who want to storm Al-Aqsa during the Hanukkah or during the coming days.
The Islamic-Christian Committee to Support Jerusalem and Holy Sites in occupied Jerusalem condemned preventing the Palestinians from the 1948 territories from entering the Aqsa Mosque on Wednesday morning by the Israeli authorities to facilitate the settlers’ raid into the Mosque.
It considered such procedure “a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the Aqsa Mosque and a preparation for achieving the Israeli plans to turn the mosque into a synagogue for the performance of Talmudic rituals.”
The Committee pointed out in a press release on Wednesday that “the occupation authorities deliberately evacuate the Aqsa Mosque in the mornings to allow the extremist settlers to perform their Talmudic rituals and prayers there; in preparation for the division of the mosque between Muslims and Jews which is considered a flagrant violation of the sanctity of places of worship.”
Secretary-General of the Committee Dr. Hanna Issa called on the international community to put pressure on the occupation authorities to stop their violations against the places of worship and to force them to comply with the provisions of the international humanitarian law particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The Islamic-Christian Committee also called upon international institutions to intervene quickly to protect the Islamic and Christian holy sites that are exposed to the occupation’s daily abuses and to protect the Palestinian citizens from the Israeli attacks.
Sheikh Kamal Khatib deputy head of the Islamic Movement in the Green Line said that the attempts by extremist Jewish groups to enter the candelabrum into the Aqsa Mosque represent a dangerous escalation.
AFEH had warned that extremist Jewish organizations including the Organization of Trustees of the Temple plan to install the Talmudic Candelabrum (Menorah) in the Dome of the Rock and light it in two stages over the next few days.
Sheikh Khatib called on the Palestinian people to take action in defense of the Aqsa and to flock towards it to protect it and hailed the Jerusalemite students and worshipers in the Aqsa Mosque for their steadfastness.
He also condemned the futile negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli occupation which serve as a cover for the Israeli attacks on the Aqsa Mosque.
