Palestinian authority: Israel has planned to divide Al-Aqsa mosque  

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – A Palestinian authority said Israel has planned to divide Al-Aqsa mosque.

Minister of Religious Affairs and Awqaf, Hatem Al-Bakri, stated that escalated storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque by settlers, protected by the Israeli occupation police, is aimed at achieving temporal and spatial division and gradually and systematically emptying the city of its residents.

“The continuation of these crimes, with the blessing of the Israeli political leadership, requires the world to assume its responsibilities and intervene earnestly to put an end to these violations,” said Al-Bakri.

Rawhi Fattouh, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, held the responsibility for this crime and other crimes against the extremist Israeli government.

For its part, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry affirmed that it is closely monitoring the daily violations by the Israeli occupation and settlers, taking them to international bodies and courts to hold the perpetrators accountable and bring them to trial.

Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements have also threatened escalating their efforts to not leave the mosque isolated.

This comes as Israeli police have transformed Jerusalem’s Old City into a battleground after preventing Palestinians from accessing the Al-Aqsa Mosque and allowing hundreds of settlers to invade it.

Hundreds of settlers had stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque after performing Talmudic rituals and provocative dances in the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City under the protection of the Israeli police, which simultaneously obstructed the arrival of worshippers to the mosque, forcing some of them to leave.

The Islamic Waqf Department reported that Israeli forces began on Sunday morning to provocatively bring large numbers of settlers into the courtyards of Al-Aqsa, while simultaneously assaulting worshipers and emptying the squares of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

They then performed Talmudic rituals on the road to Chain Gate, one of the gates to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Israeli police had prepared in advance for this incursion, which coincided with the celebration of the Hebrew New Year.