Calls for intensifying Palestinian presence in al-Aqsa

Leaders and activists within the Green Line called for intensifying Palestinian presence in al-Aqsa Mosque in light of the Israeli settlers’ mass break-ins into the holy shrine over the month of October. Head of Wafa and al-Islah party Sheikh Housam Abu Lil issued a statement denouncing the Israeli escalated attacks on the Mosque and calling for the protection of the holy shrine.

He pointed out that Israeli arbitrary court orders against Palestinian sit-inners aim at evacuating al-Aqsa from Palestinian worshipers. “Everybody must protect al-Aqsa so the Jews don’t take it,” he said. We will never give up any inch of our holy shrine at any cost.

For his part, Head of the Supreme Commission for the Support of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, Sheikh Mohammed Arif, stressed the importance of this current stage where Islamic and Christian holy sites are threatened.

He pointed to the Israeli almost-daily arrests and attacks against Palestinian worshipers and sit-inners. In this context, the lawyer Khaled Zabarqa said that Israel’s ban on a number of prominent leaders and activists’ access into occupied Jerusalem came as part of its Judaization policy. Preventing Jerusalemite youths’ entry into al-Aqsa and occupied Jerusalem came in order to pave the way for settlers’ collective break-ins, he added.

“We are witnessing a very sensitive stage that really needs united efforts to confront these Israeli schemes,” according to Zabarqa. Earlier this week, tight military restrictions were imposed by Israeli authorities at and around al-Aqsa Mosque, in occupied Jerusalem, so as to set the stage for upcoming sacrilegious ceremonies marking the advent of Jewish Holidays.