The occupation imposes severe restrictions on worshipers entering Al-Aqsa Mosque since the beginning of the aggression on Gaza (Al-Jazeera)
Occupied Jerusalem -
Identical Jerusalemite sources said that, on Thursday evening, the occupation forces began placing iron barriers on the doors leading to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.
According to the Wadi Hilweh Human Rights Information Center in Jerusalem, these barriers were placed in the area of Lions' Gate, Al-Ghazali Square, and the vicinity of the Yusufiya Cemetery.
A source at the center told Al Jazeera Net that placing the barriers precedes Friday on the one hand and the month of Ramadan, which is coming soon, on the other hand, as the occupation announced restrictions on prayer in the mosque during the holy month.
For its part, the Jerusalem Governorate, which is the highest official Palestinian representation of the Holy City, said, “The occupation police are placing iron barriers in the Lions Gate area (...) similar to the barriers that were placed in 2017.”
On July 14, 2017, the battle of the “electronic gates” or “Hebah of the Lions’ Gate” began in Al-Aqsa, when Israel closed the Blessed Mosque and the entrances to the Old City, and placed iron barriers and electronic gates to force worshipers to pass through them.
But these obstacles were met with popular and official Palestinian rejection, accompanied by Arab and Islamic solidarity, coinciding with open sit-ins at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque, which forced the occupation forces to then retreat from installing electronic gates and remove all the obstacles they had placed at the entrances to the Holy Mosque on the 27th of the same month.
Earlier Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "The State of Israel has always been sovereign in the Al-Aqsa region."
This came about two weeks after he said that Israel would place restrictions on worshipers entering the mosque during the month of Ramadan according to security conditions, at a time when Israeli Channel 13 said that Netanyahu had agreed to this restriction, according to the request of Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Since the start of its aggression against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, the occupation has imposed restrictions on worshipers entering Al-Aqsa Mosque, deployed checkpoints and inspection stations, and set the ages of those allowed to enter it, so that the number of worshipers in some Friday prayers did not exceed the barrier of 3,000, compared to about 50. Alpha before these procedures.
Source: Al Jazeera