Tel Aviv Tribune Net correspondents
Occupied Jerusalem- For the second time in public since its occupation in 1967, settlers lit candles in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem twice during the Jewish Festival of Lights (Hanukkah). Over the course of 5 days, 1,332 settlers stormed the mosque under intense protection from police and occupation forces, with an unprecedented restriction on Palestinians’ entry into the mosque. The mosque since last October 7.
The Feast of Lights – the last holiday season of the current year – began last Thursday evening, December 7, and continued according to Jewish traditions for 8 days, but the storming of Al-Aqsa lasted only 5 days. Because the Moroccan Gate is closed on Friday and Saturday.
A week before the beginning of Eid, 9 of the alleged Temple organizations mobilized their supporters to participate in a march called “The Maccabees” with the approval and protection of the occupation police, demanding the expulsion of the Islamic Endowments from Al-Aqsa and the imposition of Jewish control over it. It started from the post office square near Bab al-Khalil, passing through Bab al-Amud and al-Sahira, north of Sur. Jerusalem, passing through the Old City and the Islamic Quarter, reaching the Buraq Wall, west of Al-Aqsa Mosque, to light the large menorah erected there.
Maximum discharge and lack of coverage
The occupation police stipulated the participation of 200 settlers in the march, but only 150 participated. The march also started half an hour after its supposed time, but the police stopped it minutes after it started, and prevented it from proceeding to Bab al-Jadeed near Bab al-Khalil, and justified this by saying, “Dozens of demonstrators disobeyed the instructions of the policemen and advanced.” Without their permission, the procession was declared an illegal assembly.”
The most prominent temple organizations that mobilized for the storming were the “Temple Mount in Our Own Hands” and “Women for the Temple” organizations, where the first announced the provision of free daily guides to accompany the intruders, and the other also announced a program for women and children that includes religious lessons and tours around the mosque.
“The Al-Aqsa Mountain is quiet without Bani Ishmael (the Arabs). We are the only ones who walk and pray here.” This is how the “Women for the Temple” group expressed its happiness that Al-Aqsa Mosque was empty of Muslim worshipers for the first time, after it had been confronted by the Almoravids, their takbirs, flag rings, and recitations. The Qur’an coincides with each intrusion.
Due to the exclusion of the guards of Al-Aqsa Mosque since last October 7, and their distance from the groups of intruders by about 50 meters, in addition to preventing worshipers and journalists from entering the mosque in general, and during the hours of the intrusion in particular, no information was known about the violations of the Temple groups in the mosque, except to the extent that they published it on their accounts. Official social networking sites.
Targeting Al-Aqsa
Lighting the menorah (consisting of 8 candles) is the most prominent ritual of the Jewish Festival of Lights. Every holiday, settlers light a huge menorah in the square of the Buraq Wall. They also place miniature models of it on the doorsteps of their homes in the Old City, or on the rooftops overlooking Al-Aqsa.
During the past few days, they also installed a menorah over “Sharon’s house” on Al-Wad Road and on the doorstep of the Sub Laban family’s home in Aqabat Al-Khalidiyah, in addition to the occupation municipality lighting up the western wall of Jerusalem with images of the menorah, and installing it on street lighting poles and some vehicles in Jerusalem, as a manifestation of proof. Jewish sovereignty over the city.
The settlers are keen to carry out all religious rituals inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to morally establish the alleged structure in preparation for its actual construction in the place of Al-Aqsa. Therefore, during the past years, candelabras were erected at the Mughrabi Gate – one of the gates of Al-Aqsa – and the settlers lit them, accompanied by members of the Israeli Knesset, in addition to lighting them at night at the gates of Al-Aqsa. The mosque, specifically the Lions Gate.
In 2021, specifically on November 29, settlers raised banners in Al-Aqsa reading “We have come to expel darkness,” and lit hand-held lighters in reference to the menorah. A few days later, a settler lit a small candle that he placed between his hands near the Gate of Mercy, east of the mosque.
Two years later, on December 10 (the third day of Eid), the settlers succeeded in lighting three circular candles on one of the stones in the eastern region near Bab al-Rahma. Then, the next day, one of them was able to walk around with a vertical candle after lighting it in the same area and reciting special prayers.
#dangerous| For the second time since the beginning of the Jewish Festival of Lights (Hanukkah), a settler lit a candle and recited prayers inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, yesterday, Monday, near the Gate of Mercy, east of the mosque.
It is noteworthy that settlers lit three candles inside the mosque last Sunday, in an unprecedented violation carried out for the first time since the occupation of Al-Aqsa Mosque in… pic.twitter.com/FTwcFFLHbH
– Jerusalem Compass (@alqudsalbawsala) December 12, 2023
Fighting prayers
During this holiday, soldiers in the occupation army in their uniforms stormed Al-Aqsa, before or after they started to fight in the Gaza Strip and the Lebanese border, as was done by the spokesman for the Union of Temple Organizations (Assaf Farid). In addition, settlers organize collective prayers inside Al-Aqsa to commemorate the Israeli deaths who fell during the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle.
During the sixth day of Eid (December 13), the occupation police arrested Al-Aqsa Mosque guards Ihab Shehadeh, Mahmoud Al-Safadi, and Zain Al-Majed, then released them after taking them to the Beit Eliyahu police station near Bab Al-Silsilah, under the pretext of intercepting a tourist who dressed inside Al-Aqsa. (Kippah), a round head covering worn by Jewish men.
It is noteworthy that 1,795 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque over the course of 7 days of the last Eid of Lights (Hanukkah) at the end of 2022, revealing that the number is close to the number of intruders during the current Eid 2023, despite the emptying of the mosque of Palestinians, the doubling of security protection, and the lack of barriers in front of settlers coming from all parts of occupied Palestine. .
