AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – 
Zionist settler incursions at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound have increased by more than 18,000 percent since 2003 when the Zionist regime’s authorities began allowing settlers to bypass the Islamic Waqf management and controversially enter Islam’s third-holiest site.
According to figures from the Waqf, the organization that administers the historic mosque complex, exactly 289 settlers entered Al-Aqsa in 2003 through the Mughrabi Gate, which stands near the Western Wall.
Since then, numbers have drastically risen year-on-year, only falling during the height of the pandemic in 2020 when the number of incursions fell to 18,562.
According to the latest full-year data, exactly 53,488 Zionist settlers stormed Al-Aqsa in 2024, an increase of 18,507 percent since 2003.
In 2022, before the 7 October, exactly 47,935 settlers stormed the mosque complex, mainly under the protection of heavily armed Israeli police, soldiers, as well as members of the Israeli parliament and religious leaders for controversial Talmudic prayer.
For decades the Zionist regime had prohibited Jewish prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque over fears of violence erupting in Al-Quds and other areas of the occupied West Bank.
However, ultranationalist settlers have opposed this stance, and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right cabinet has increasingly allowed and even encouraged Jewish prayer there.
Itamar Ben Gvir, the regime’s hardline minister and a convicted felon, has also openly called for Jewish prayer at Al-Aqsa, and last stormed the site two weeks ago. 
Earlier this month, during the Jewish holiday of Passover, at least 6,768 Jews entered the mosque’s courtyards to pray, according to the Waqf - more than all the Jewish worshippers that visited during the holidays last year.
An official from the Waqf told Middle East Eye that during the Passover period there were at least four failed attempts by Zionist settlers to slaughter animals in the mosque’s courtyard.
The Waqf official accused Israeli officials of having “no respect” for the Muslim place of worship and said that repeated outreach efforts with the U.S. had failed to yield positive results.
“We have been in touch with the Americans for the past four years. But in the end, they made it clear to us that they can’t make any decisions toward Al-Aqsa,” the official said.