Jerusalemite religious figures warn of grave dangers facing Aqsa Mosque
Senior Jerusalemite religious figures warned of the gravity of the situation facing the Aqsa Mosque, affirming that the Israeli occupation regime attempts nowadays to impose its temporal and spatial division plan at the Mosque.
This came during a news conference held on Tuesday afternoon by the higher Islamic council in Jerusalem outside Al-Asbat Gate of the Aqsa Mosque.
“The Israeli occupation allowed large groups of settlers to break into the Aqsa Mosque today, and there are an unprecedented onslaught on the Aqsa Mosque in recent days as many [Muslim] worshipers are barred from entering it,” head of the Islamic Awqaf board in Jerusalem Sheikh Abdul-Azim Salhab told journalists.
“We urge the Islamic world to intervene swiftly to protect the Aqsa Mosque, and we also call upon the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to increase the number of the Aqsa Mosque’s guards,” Sheikh Salhab added.
He also urged the Palestinians in Jerusalem and the 1948 occupied land to frequent the Aqsa Mosque for prayers and intensify their presence throughout its premises or outside its gates if they failed to enter it because of the Israeli restrictions.
For his part, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, head of the higher Islamic council in Jerusalem, strongly denounced the Israeli occupation police for preventing many Palestinian worshipers and Awqaf employees from entering the Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday morning and confiscating their ID cards.
Sheikh Sabri described the Israeli measures at the Aqsa Mosque as illegal and held the Israeli occupation authority in Jerusalem fully responsible for all resultant tension and violent events.
“We would like to confirm that we have a legitimate right to the Aqsa Mosque, and that the military power will never confer legitimacy upon the occupation,” he stated.
For his part, Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, the grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, highlighted in his speech the Jewish attempts to divide the Aqsa Mosque temporally and spatially through defiling the sanctity of the Mosque on a daily basis.
“The Jewish extremists attempt to impose a temporal and spatial division scheme at the Aqsa Mosque and make it a fait accompli, but we reject such situation. Today, they assaulted Sheikh Abdul-Azim Salhab at the Aqsa Mosque,” Sheikh Hussein said.
“Our standing here today is obvious proof that we have been prevented from entering the Aqsa Mosque, so we call upon the international community to intervene to curb the arrogance of the Israeli occupation,” he stated.
