AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – Dozens of settlers broke into al-Aqsa compound in occupied East al-Quds on Wednesday, flanked by Zionist troops, as the occupying regime’s authorities placed restrictions on Palestinians entering the mosque in the Old City.
Al-Quds’ Islamic Waqf, which manages and administers Islam’s third-holiest mosque, said that 61 settlers had toured the site “provocatively” after entering from the Moroccan Gate.
The Waqf said that the identities of Palestinians entering the compound were checked by Zionist troops at the gates.
Al-Aqsa compound was one of the flashpoints of the violence in May. Zionist troops stormed the site in the month of Ramadan and assaulted Palestinian worshippers, firing rubber-coated bullets and tear gas at them.
Zionist settlers regularly tour al-Aqsa compound through the Moroccan Gate, which leads to the Western Wall plaza. They are always accompanied by troops and members of the spy agencies, and sometimes by Zionist officials, including ministers and Knesset members.
In May, Zionist settlers were not allowed to enter al-Aqsa compound for almost 20 days during Palestinian protests in Shiekh Jarrah and Damascus Gate over evictions, and later the bombing of the Gaza Strip.
They resumed their tours on 23 May, two days after a ceasefire was announced between the regime and Palestinian factions in Gaza, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
United Nations representatives denounced the potential forced expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes in occupied East al-Quds’ Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as a “violation of international law”.
Speaking from Sheikh Jarrah on Wednesday, UNRWA commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini said: “This eviction violates international law and Israel’s obligation as an occupying power. For UNRWA, these Palestinian refugees are experiencing a second displacement in living memory.”
Meanwhile, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in al-Quds, Archbishop Atallah Hanna, said on Tuesday that the regime’s plans to expel Palestinian families from their homes in the city’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood will not succeed, Al-Watan Voice has reported.
“Your issue is the issue of all our people and your tragedy is the tragedy of all of us,” Archbishop Hanna told a delegation from al-Quds neighborhoods. “All Palestinian and Arab parties are interested in this issue.”
He pointed out that Sheikh Jarrah has become a matter for international public opinion to consider due to social media. “The youth are using technology show the world the suffering, pain and oppression being inflicted on them.”
In another development, more than 50 high-level officials from across Europe, including former prime ministers and foreign ministers, have signed an open letter condemning political interference in the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) probe into the Zionist regime’s war crimes in Palestine.
The letter, published by the Guardian on Monday, is seen as a rebuke on world leaders such as former U.S. president Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who have openly criticized the court’s efforts to hold the Zionist regime accountable for suspected war crimes.
“We witnessed with serious concern the executive order issued in the United States by the former president Donald Trump and the sanctions designated against the court’s staff and their family members,” the letter says.