12/29/2024–|Last updated: 12/29/202401:47 PM (Mecca time)
Tel Aviv Tribune’s correspondent reported that extremist settlers stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, today, Sunday, under heavy protection from the occupation forces, and performed Talmudic rituals on the fourth day of the so-called Jewish Festival of Lights (Hanukkah).
Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karei said, “I performed prayers today in the tunnels of the Western Wall Square and prayed for the return of all the kidnapped.”
He added, “The future of the gates of Jerusalem that illuminate our path is to reach the gates of Damascus.”
#a witness | Settlers desecrate the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque… singing, dancing, and parties in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa after storming it during the so-called Hebrew “Feast of Lights.” pic.twitter.com/wphjTDVQtq
– Shehab News Agency (@ShehabAgency) December 29, 2024
Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque last Thursday, on the first day of what the Jews call the Festival of Lights.
For its part, the Jerusalem Governorate warned – in a statement – of the dangerous escalation taking place in the occupied Holy City during the “Eid of Lights.”
The Palestinians say that Israel is intensifying its measures to Judaize East Jerusalem, including Al-Aqsa Mosque, and to erase its Arab and Islamic identity.
The Jerusalem Governorate also called on the international community, the United Nations, and Arab and Islamic countries to take immediate and decisive action “to put pressure on the occupation government and stop these blatant violations against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
The governorate stressed in a statement that “the international silence regarding these crimes constitutes an implicit encouragement to the occupation to continue its violations and aggression.”
These incursions come amid the continuation of a genocidal war waged by the occupation army against Gaza since October 7, 2023 – with American support, and in full view of the whole world – which has left more than 154,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing. Amidst massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children and the elderly in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
