The Palestinian ministry of religious affairs has warned against Israeli attempts to change the status quo at the Ibrahimi Mosque and control it.
In press remarks on Wednesday Sheikh Yousef Ad’eis affirmed that Israel’s repeated closure of the Ibrahimi Mosque is aimed at paving the way for the settlers to seize it and prevent Muslims from entering it.
Ad’eis also denounced an Israeli plan to add an elevator to the Mosque under flimsy pretexts pointing out that such addition would affect the integrity of the Mosque’s history and violate UNESCO’s resolutions calling for necessarily preserving the holy site as part of the human heritage.
He stressed that the Ibrahimi Mosque is an Islamic mortmain site belonging only to the Muslim nation and no one has the right to use it or violate its sanctity under any pretexts.
“Despite its exposure to temporal and spatial division the right to manage the Mosque with all its spaces and facilities and take technical procedures at the holy site belongs to the ministry of Awqaf and religious affairs that represents the sovereignty of the State of Palestine” the minister underlined.
He called on UNESCO to intervene to ensure that its resolutions on the Ibrahimi Mosque is respected by Israel.
