The so-called “Minister of National Security” in the Israeli occupation government, Itamar Ben Gvir, stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday morning in occupied East Jerusalem. This move has once again raised concerns over escalating violations against Islamic holy sites amid ongoing international disregard for the systematic abuses carried out by the Israeli occupation authorities.
According to the Islamic Waqf Department in Jerusalem, 2,228 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque’s courtyards in successive groups under heavy protection from Israeli occupation police. This occurred in response to calls from extremist settler groups to justify their incursions and impose new de facto measures within the mosque’s grounds.
Footage broadcast by Arab media outlets showed Ben Gvir, leader of the far-right “Jewish Power” party, leading groups of settlers in performing Talmudic rituals in Al-Aqsa Mosque’s courtyards, while holding his phone as if reading religious texts, surrounded by a large number of supporters and protected by Israeli occupation police.
Since Ben Gvir assumed his post, he has exerted direct control over the Israeli occupation police in Jerusalem, granting him wide powers to secure repeated stormings of the mosque and to suppress Palestinians within the Old City and Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Ben Gvir has previously stormed the mosque on several occasions, sparking widespread condemnation from Palestinian, Arab, and international bodies. However, no effective measures have been taken to deter such actions.
This conduct is part of the Israeli occupation’s policies aimed at Judaizing Jerusalem and entrenching the temporal and spatial division of Al-Aqsa Mosque, a step towards its eventual partition or destruction—an outcome warned against by international human rights organisations.
These incursions come amid the ongoing genocidal war waged by the Israeli occupation on the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians, including large numbers of women and children, and caused massive destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Simultaneously, the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, has witnessed intensified military escalation. Israeli occupation forces continue to conduct daily raids and arrests, during which Palestinians are frequently killed in cold blood, amid international silence and lack of intervention.
Despite these grave violations, the international community persists in its inaction, failing to enforce relevant UN resolutions—effectively granting the Israeli occupation a green light to continue its crimes.
