Nadine Osman
In total, over 48,000 illegal Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem under the protection of Israeli police last year, according to the authority overseeing the holy site.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, is located on a hilltop complex known by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) and by Jews as the Temple Mount. Jews revere it as the location of two biblical temples.
An official in Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf Department told Anadolu Agency that in the previous year, “48,223 settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex.”
Last month alone, he said, 3,086 settlers raided the mosque. The worst single incident occurred during the Jewish holidays in October, when more than 8,000 settlers stormed the courtyards of the mosque under the protection of Israeli forces, assaulting Muslim worshippers and forcing them to leave, it said.
Since the occupation of East Jerusalem by Israel in 1967, the highest number of incursions into the mosque in a single year was 51,483 in 2022.
Israeli police began allowing the settler incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in 2003, despite repeated condemnations from Palestinians.
The Jerusalem-based Wadi Hilweh Information Centre said in a statement that Israeli authorities issued 1,105 deportation orders in 2023 to Palestinians, including deportation orders from Jerusalem’s Old City and elsewhere in Jerusalem.
The centre also documented 209 Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes across occupied East Jerusalem, including 68 demolitions that took place after October 7, the start of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.
Twenty-one Palestinians from Jerusalem have been killed by Israeli forces in 2023, the centre added.
During the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, Israel invaded East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, then annexed the entire city in 1980, a move that was never accepted internationally.
Israeli officials have been accused of using deportations and similar moves to clear the city’s Palestinian population from lands they have lived on and owned for centuries.
Photo: Jewish settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque on the fourth day of the Sukkot holiday in the Old City of Jerusalem on October 3, 2023. (Credit: Jerusalem Islamic Waqf/AA)
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