Occupied Jerusalem- The curtain falls on 2023, one of the harshest years for the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque since the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.
Perhaps the last quarter of the year, which was represented by the siege of the mosque and the tightening of entry procedures to it with the outbreak of war on the Gaza Strip following the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation on the seventh of last October, was the most difficult chapter in the series of Israeli violations against the first two qiblahs.
Among these violations, the Jerusalem Governorate, which is considered the highest official Palestinian representation in the city, documented the storming of 51,994 extremist men and women into Al-Aqsa Square from the beginning of the year until the end of last November.
One of the most difficult things that happened to the mosque was Itamar Ben Gvir assuming the portfolio of the Ministry of National Security. On his first day in office, he announced his intention to storm Al-Aqsa, the same day he received a letter from the extremist Temple groups, including 11 demands they had for the mosque.
Ben Gvir ignites the region
Ben Gvir said in one of his incursions, “I am happy to have ascended to the Temple Mount, which is the most important place for the people of Israel. Once again we prove who owns the place in Jerusalem, and Hamas’s threats will not deter us.”
His presence in the government opened the appetite of extremist groups to achieve new gains, as 15 rabbis sent an official letter to him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding permission to slaughter the Jewish Passover sacrifice inside Al-Aqsa.
In a dangerous challenge, the extremist Temple groups published a video clip of one of their spiritual leaders inciting their supporters to forcefully slaughter the Passover offering inside Al-Aqsa Mosque. Rabbi Natan Zvi Prin said, “A thousand Jews will enter the Temple Mount through the Chain Gate and offer the Passover offering there… Believe it, this is what will happen.” .
In conjunction with these statements regarding Easter, which coincided with the blessed month of Ramadan, the worshipers were determined to seclude themselves in Al-Aqsa since the first night of Ramadan, and they succeeded in doing so for two consecutive nights.
On the nights of the 14th and 15th of Ramadan, the occupation forces brutally stormed the Al-Qibli prayer hall and targeted the worshipers inside with rubber-coated bullets, gas and sound bombs, and batons, and arrested 450 devotees at once.
Targeting the door of mercy
The Bab al-Rahma prayer hall, in the eastern part of the mosque, was not isolated from the violations taking place in the courtyards, and it suffered many of them during the year 2023, as the police and Israeli intelligence stormed it repeatedly, removed the Islamic Endowments guards from it, isolated it, and arrested a number of young men from inside it. After submitting to the Israeli court a request for an order to close the prayer hall, claiming that it is “offices used as a headquarters for subversive and incitement activities.”
It was also noteworthy during the current year that the extremist Temple groups deliberately moved to a new level of aggression, as they began to celebrate their marginal occasions in Al-Aqsa and also deal with the seasons of central raids on the major Jewish holidays.
Among the mass violations that were recorded in Al-Aqsa squares – especially the eastern ones surrounding the Bab al-Rahma prayer hall – included raising the occupation flag, singing its “national” anthem, performing the ritual of “epic prostration” and the loud “priests’ blessings” prayer, in addition to reading scrolls from the Torah in the squares.
This year, as every year, the mosque received its share of extremist statements, the most prominent of which were made by a member of the Knesset from the Likud Party, Amit Halevy, who presented a detailed draft plan to divide the Al-Aqsa Mosque spatially between Muslims and Jews, so that the perimeter of the prayer hall would be allocated to Muslims, while the Dome of the Rock would be The area overlooking the northern border of the mosque is for the Jews.
As for the CEO of the “Temple Mount in Our Hands” organization, Tom Nissany, he said after the end of the so-called incursions on the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple, “With Israel’s attachment to the Temple Mount, the will of the Jewish people cannot be stopped.”
After the war, it is not the same as before
The tone of extremism rose in the statements of officials after the launch of the war on the Gaza Strip on the seventh of last October, as the Temple groups circulated to their members the necessity of storming the mosque, and their calls stated, “The appropriate Zionist answer is the free entry of Jews to the Temple Mount.”
These groups also called for closing the doors of the first two qiblahs to Muslims until the release of all Israeli prisoners detained in Gaza, and said, “The Temple Mount must be completely closed to Muslims, until the last Israeli kidnapper returns to Israel.”
In addition, these groups tried to involve the issue of the mosque in the fighting operations of Israeli soldiers in Gaza, so the picture of the alleged temple was printed on the soldiers’ helmets and military uniforms, and the temple groups wrote, commenting on these pictures, “The soldier who understands what really needs to fight in order to win.”
All of this coincided with the police tightening their grip on the doors of the mosque and dealing temperamentally with the worshipers, only a few of whom succeeded in reaching the courtyards.
Endowment employees and their freedom to perform their work, especially the mosque reconstruction committee, were restricted, and the policy of deportation was continued, until the number of those deported from it from the beginning of the year to the end of last November reached 577 people, according to data from the Jerusalem Governorate.
What in 2024?
Associate Professor of Jerusalem Studies and Head of the Department of Islamic History at Ankara University of Social Sciences, Khaled Al-Owaisi, says that what Al-Aqsa Mosque witnessed during the year 2023 is an accelerated implementation by the occupation government of the American-Zionist vision declared in the terms of the Deal of the Century, which clearly stipulated making this holy place a common place. For worship, like the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.
In his forward-looking view of what awaits Al-Aqsa in 2024, Al-Owaisi confirmed in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net that Judaization will escalate if there is no deterrent to the occupation, because it will seek to increase its gains by allocating a synagogue in the courtyards of the mosque within the policy of spatial division.
Al-Owaisi believes that the political and military confusion of the occupation during the war on Gaza pushes it to achieve any gains, even if they are in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in order to satisfy the base of the extreme right and the Temple groups.
