A state of high tension prevailed at the Aqsa Mosque in Occupied Jerusalem on Monday after a Saudi soccer delegation visited the holy site under security protection by Israeli and Palestinian Authority (PA) forces.
According to local media sources Israeli police forces arrested many Palestinians including three from the 1948 occupied lands after they protested the Saudi sports delegation’s visit to the Aqsa Mosque and its normalization with the Israeli occupation.
Meanwhile verbal altercations took place between Palestinian worshipers and PA security officers who escorted the Saudi delegation during their tour of the Aqsa Mosque.
PA security officers used foul language to criticize protesting women at the Mosque local sources said.
The delegation’s visit has been seen by many Palestinians and Arabs as breaching a decades-long Arab boycott of the Israeli occupation state and an act of normalization with it because the Saudis obtained Israeli permits to play a match in the occupied West Bank.
The Saudi team’s trip for Tuesday’s World Cup qualifier match marks a change in policy for the Gulf state which has previously played against Palestine in third countries to avoid seeking Israeli travel permission.
