The Hamas Movement has warned that an extremist Jewish group’s incitement to destroy the Aqsa Mosque’s Dome of the Rock and build the alleged temple on its ruins is “playing with fire” and “will backfire on the Israeli occupation state.”
In a statement on Wednesday Hamas described such incitement as a “deliberate provocation to the feelings of the Palestinian people and the Muslim nation” and a “dangerous escalation against the Palestinian identity values and holy sites.”
“The flames that are being tampered with by such extremist groups will rebound upon the Israeli government and leaders” the Movement said.
The Movement urged the Palestinian masses to intensify their presence at the Aqsa Mosque to protect it against intended settler break-ins and to stand strongly in the face of the occupation and “its dangerous Judaization plots.”
The leader of a far-right Jewish group incited his followers on Wednesday to demolish the Dome of the Rock prayer building in the Aqsa Mosque compound in Occupied Jerusalem.
Bentzi Gopstein leader of Lehava (a Jewish extremist group) published recently provocative social media postings in which he incited settlers to unite on “Jerusalem Day” on May 29 and storm the Aqsa Mosque en masse to start dismantling the Dome of the Rock prayer building in order to pave the way for the construction of a Jewish temple in its place.
“Jerusalem Day which falls on 29 May is the day when the demolition of the Dome of the Rock will begin” Gopstein wrote on social media.
“Jerusalem Day” is an annual Israeli occasion to commemorate the day when the Israeli army occupied east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War.
The Lehava leader also published a poster on social media showing an excavator next to the Dome of the Rock. In another poster an excavator appears to be demolishing the holy site.
Gopstein is the student of extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane the founder and leader of the anti-Arab Kach organization (designated by many countries as a terror group). He was accused in 1990 of killing two Palestinians from the West Bank village of al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya village just one day after Kahane was assassinated in New York City. Gopstein was detained for two weeks at the time and then released due to a lack of evidence.
