Dozens of Israeli settlers, under the protection of the occupation police, stormed the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Tuesday.
According to the Jerusalem Governorate, 693 settlers entered the mosque’s courtyards under heavy police guard, performing Talmudic rituals directly in front of the Dome of the Rock.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque has witnessed an escalation in settler incursions since the onset of the genocide in Gaza, in a grave provocation and a blatant violation of the sanctity of the holy site.
These repeated incursions constitute a flagrant breach of the right to freedom of worship, guaranteed under international covenants, foremost among them the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which affirms every individual’s right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the freedom to practise worship in places of faith without intimidation or coercion.
Such practices also represent a direct assault on the historical and legal status quo in Jerusalem, repeatedly affirmed by United Nations and UNESCO resolutions, which recognise Al-Aqsa Mosque as an exclusively Islamic heritage site that must not be altered or subjected to Judaization.
The protection afforded by the occupation police to these incursions reflects an official policy aimed at imposing a new reality within Al-Aqsa, in a policy that contravenes the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which obliges an occupying power to refrain from desecrating or altering religious sites.
The continued repetition of these incursions under official protection constitutes a grave provocation to Palestinians and Muslims worldwide, heightening tensions in Jerusalem and across the occupied West Bank. Meanwhile, the international community’s silence over these ongoing violations only emboldens the occupation to persist in its Judaization policies and in eroding the religious and cultural rights of the Palestinian people.
