GAZA (Dispatches) – The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has warned the Zionist regime that it “won’t sit idly by” if new Zionist so-called security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visits Al-Aqsa Mosque as he vowed to do on Sunday.
Ben-Gvir’s office has told police he wants to visit the holy site on Tuesday or Wednesday, a Jewish fast day commemorating events related to the destruction of the temple that once stood at the site, according to Israeli TV channel Kan.
In response, Hamas reportedly told the Zionist regime - via Egypt - on Monday that Benjamin Netanyahu’s new cabinet will face consequences if Ben-Gvir makes the visit.
According to a report by the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen news channel, which is close to the Hezbollah resistance movement, Hamas “won’t sit idly by” if Ben-Gvir goes to the site, one of the holiest in Islam and Judaism, violating an agreement banning non-Muslims from entering the site without permission.
Hamas spokesman Abd al-Latif al-Qanua said earlier on Monday that the planned visit was “another example of the arrogance of the settlers and their future plans to damage and divide Al-Aqsa mosque”.
“The Palestinian resistance will not allow the neo-fascist occupation cabinet to cross the red lines and encroach on our people and our sanctities.”
Benjamin Netanyahu’s sixth cabinet is the most right-wing administration in the occupying regime’s history.
The new administration includes MPs from the Likud party, far-right religious Zionist factions and ultra-Orthodox parties, who together hold 64 of parliament’s 120 seats.
As well as attempting to annex large swaths of the occupied West Bank, they are expected to try to expand illegal settlements and allow Jewish prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
How Hamas might respond has been the subject of intense speculation.
For Mukhaimer Abu Saada, a political science professor at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, “confrontation is inevitable”.
“The agenda of the new right-wing cabinet is clear towards annexing parts of the West Bank and changing the status quo in Al-Quds, and this will cause a great reaction from the Palestinian factions in Gaza,” he told Middle East Eye.