Hundreds of settlers storm Al-Aqsa and attempts to seize lands in Jerusalem

Hundreds of settlers stormed the courtyards of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque this Monday morning, performing Talmudic rituals under tight protection from the Israeli occupation police, while others attempted to seize lands belonging to Palestinians in the village of Beit Iksa, northwest of occupied Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Governorate stated that 476 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque during the morning and afternoon incursions. Local sources reported that the settlers performed Talmudic rituals in front of the Dome of the Rock, in addition to the eastern area of the mosque, near the Bab al-Rahma prayer hall.

In a related context, the occupation authorities handed a young Jerusalemite a decision to ban him from Al-Aqsa Mosque for a week, renewable, and also issued a decision to ban a Jerusalemite activist from the mosque for 6 months. Last Thursday, the Israeli occupation authorities summoned nearly 100 released prisoners and interrogated them on-site for hours, informing them to appear before investigators again with the intention of issuing them expulsion orders from Al-Aqsa Mosque before the holy month.

On the ground, dozens of settlers, accompanied by the deputy mayor of the occupation municipality in Jerusalem, Aryeh King, stormed the village of Beit Iksa northwest of occupied Jerusalem today, in an attempt to seize a plot of land located on the western side of the village.

The head of the Beit Iksa village council, Murad Zayed, said that the settlers stormed the areas of Ras Farij and Kroum al-Gharaba, and tried to seize lands owned by citizens of the village, by erecting barbed wire around them with the aim of confiscating them.

Zayed added that the villagers confronted the attempt and prevented the settlers from completing their work, before the Israeli occupation forces intervened, arriving at the scene, and superficially evacuating the settlers, then declared the area a closed military zone, and prevented citizens from accessing their lands.

He pointed out that this attempt falls within a systematic policy targeting the isolated lands of Beit Iksa, which are surrounded by the Mevaseret Zion settlement built on the lands of the village and the depopulated village of Qalunya.

The village of Beit Iksa suffers from strict occupation measures, most notably the only military checkpoint that controls its entrances, in addition to strict restrictions on construction and access to agricultural lands, which exacerbates the suffering of the residents and threatens their presence on their land.

The occupation forces also continued to tighten their military measures in the city of Jerusalem, as they began - according to the Jerusalem Governorate - to replace military installations and iron gates at the southern Hizma checkpoint northeast of the city. Occupation municipality crews also stormed the Al-Bustan neighborhood in Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, coinciding with incursions into the Shuafat refugee camp north of Jerusalem.