Dozens of Jewish settlers resumed on Sunday morning their forced entry into the courtyards of the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque and performed Talmudic rituals celebrating the Jewish festival called Hanukkah under Israeli police protection.
Jerusalemite sources reported that 130 settlers including 40 students of extremist religious institutes stormed the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the morning period of the daily incursions.
The Israeli police closed the Maghareba Gate after the end of the morning incursions while they continued to evacuate the eastern area of the Mosque and the al-Rahma Gate prayer hall during the settlers’ incursions.
In a continuous escalation against Al-Aqsa settlers led by the extremist Yehuda Etzion sat down at the yards of the al-Silsila Gate area in Al-Aqsa as part of their Talmudic rituals.
Etzion raised a miniature for the alleged temple in front of a group of settlers inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Etzion had planned to blow up the Dome of the Rock in the 80s of the last century and established an underground terrorist organization toward that end.
The settler incursions are part of periodic tours aiming to change the fait accompli in the Holy City and Al-Aqsa Mosque.
During the evening incursions the Israeli police provided the settlers an additional half hour between 12:30 and 2:00 instead of 1:30.
The head of the Islamic Supreme Authority in Jerusalem and the preacher of the Al-Aqsa Mosque Sheikh Ikrimah Sabri warned of the seriousness of the recent request of the extremist Jewish groups. They asked to build a Talmudic school in the eastern square of Al-Aqsa to gain a foothold in it after they failed to control and convert the al-Rahma Gate to a synagogue
Sheikh Sabri warned that the occupation is trying to take away the powers of the endowments in Al-Aqsa and gradually take control of the Holy City.
He pointed out that the temporal and spatial division policy that the occupation is trying to impose began decades ago but Jerusalemites and the Palestinians in 1948 Occupied Palestine responded to that scheme and foiled it.
