GAZA (Dispatches) – The
Interior Ministry in the Gaza Strip on Monday marked the 13th anniversary of the 2008 Zionist aggression against the Palestinian territory.
The ministry organized a ceremony to mark the anniversary, during which a wreath was laid on a memorial erected in memory of those killed during the Zionist onslaught.
More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed in the occupying regime’s three-week-long operation, including dozens of children and women. A total of 13 Zionists were also killed in attacks by Palestinian resistance factions.
Nearly 200 Palestinians, mostly security personnel, were killed on the first day of the Zionist offensive on the seaside enclave.
Ministry undersecretary Nasser Musleh said the Zionist occupation wanted to break Gaza’s internal front and create divisions among security forces.
We “will continue to maintain a state of security and stability,” Musleh said, vowing not to “allow anyone to tamper with Gaza’s security under any cover and in any form.”
He reiterated the ministry’s commitment to protecting the resistance and pursuing those collaborating with the occupying regime.
In another development in occupied territories, at least 120 Zionist settlers have stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied Old City of East Al-Quds under the protection of the occupying regime’s forces in the latest act of provocation against the sacred site.
The settlers entered the compound through the Moroccan Gate on Monday morning to mark a Jewish religious occasion and perform Talmudic prayers under the full protection of Zionist troops.
Hardline Israeli legislators and extremist settlers regularly storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied city, a provocative move that infuriates Palestinians. Such mass settler break-ins almost always take place at the behest of Tel Aviv-backed temple groups and under the auspices of the Zionist police in Al-Quds.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which sits just above the Western Wall plaza, houses both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque.
According to an agreement signed between the Zionist regime and the Jordanian government in the wake of the regime’s occupation of East Al-Quds in 1967, non-Muslim worship at the compound is prohibited.
Back in early October, a Zionist court upheld a ban on prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, after an earlier lower court’s decision stirred outrage among various Palestinians and across the Muslim world.
Back in May, frequent acts of violence against Palestinian worshipers at Al-Aqsa Mosque led to an 11-day war between Palestinian resistance groups in the besieged Gaza Strip and the Zionist regime, during which the regime killed at least 260 Palestinians, including 66 children.
Palestinians want the occupied West Bank as part of their future independent state and view Al-Quds’ eastern sector as the capital of their future sovereign state.