On Wednesday, Israeli settlers stormed the courtyards of the Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, escorted by Israeli occupation forces (IOF).
According to the Jerusalem Governorate, 920 settlers entered the mosque in groups, conducting provocative tours and performing Talmudic rituals, all under the protection of IOF troops.
Since Itamar Ben-Gvir took office in late 2022, such incursions have increased, as part of a systematic policy to enforce temporal and spatial division of the mosque. This constitutes a blatant violation of the mosque’s established legal and historical status quo, which is recognised by international agreements as a site solely for Muslim worship.
These repeated violations are a clear infringement of freedom of worship and a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which obliges occupying powers to respect religious sites in occupied territories. They also form part of the occupation’s policy of religious discrimination against Palestinians in Jerusalem.
The continued attacks on Al-Aqsa signal a dangerous escalation, accompanied by systematic restrictions on Palestinian presence in the Holy City and efforts to impose a settler-dominated reality aimed at erasing the Arab and Islamic identity of Jerusalem and transforming it into a city under complete Israeli control.
In the absence of firm international action, these violations persist unchecked, highlighting the failure of the global legal system to uphold justice and accountability, and effectively enabling the Israeli occupation’s policies of Judaization and erasure of the city’s religious and historical identity.
