The Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs said on Tuesday that the Israeli authorities had banned the call to dawn prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque in the southern West Bank city of Hebron for the eighth consecutive day.
The ministry added in a press statement: “We condemn the Israeli occupation forces’ prevention of the call to prayer for dawn prayers from the minarets of the Ibrahimi Mosque, for 8 days.”
She continued: “This is a dangerous development that clearly aims to hide Islamic rituals inside the sanctuary and completely prevent them in the future.”
The ministry warned of the danger of the Israeli escalation and the violation of the sanctity of the Ibrahimi Mosque, according to the statement.
She pointed out that the Israeli authorities prevented a foreign diplomatic delegation from entering the Ibrahimi Mosque on Monday, in an attempt to prevent them from seeing the crimes of Judaization, theft and changing its features that it is being subjected to.
She added: “Last night, settlers, under the protection of the Israeli occupation forces, desecrated the Ibrahimi Mosque with Talmudic dances to the sound of loud music.”
She went on to say that these violations are occurring in a successive and systematic manner and aim to tighten control over the Ibrahimi Mosque, which requires the international community to do what is necessary to stop and end them and affirm the Palestinian people’s absolute sovereignty over it.
The Ibrahimi Mosque is located in the Old City of Hebron, which is under Israeli control, and is home to about 400 settlers guarded by about 1,500 Israeli soldiers.
Since 1994, Israel has divided the mosque into 63% for Jews and 37% for Muslims, following a massacre by a settler that killed 29 Palestinian worshippers.
In parallel with its war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, the Israeli army and settlers have escalated their attacks in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which has led to the martyrdom of 716 Palestinians, the injury of about 5,750, and the arrest of more than 10,800, according to official Palestinian institutions.
With full American support, Israel is waging a devastating war in Gaza that has resulted in more than 137,000 martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amidst massive destruction and famine that has killed dozens of children, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.