Israel prohibited the Muslim call to prayer 298 times in the first half of this year at a historical mosque in the occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil.
“Occupying Israeli forces prohibited the Azan including calls to Friday prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque 298 times in the first six months of 2018” Palestinian Religious Endowments Minister Yousef Adais said.
Adais added that Israel was also interrupting restoration work at the mosque and its courtyard.
The Ibrahimi Mosque is located in al-Khalil’s Old City district which is home to some 160000 Palestinian Muslims and about 500 Jewish settlers with the latter living in a series of Jewish-only enclaves heavily guarded by Israeli troops.
In 1994 Baruch Goldstein an Israeli-American Jewish settler gunned down 29 Palestinian Muslims as they prayed at the mosque before being killed himself.
Since then the mosque — believed to have been built on the tomb of Prophet Ibrahim — has been divided into a Muslim section (45 percent) and a Jewish section (55 percent).
