AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – The Directorate of the Al-Quds Islamic Waqf has revealed that Zionist regime occupation authorities have rejected and prevented the implementation of its decision to increase the number of guards at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Director of Al-Aqsa Mosque Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani explained: “Occupation authorities are constantly seeking to deport and arrest the guards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, especially in light of the increase in almost daily incursions by settlers to Al-Aqsa Mosque, and their attempts to perform Talmudic rituals and prayers.”
In an exclusive statement to Arabi21, he stressed: “The violations by the occupation authorities and extremists are continuing against Al-Aqsa Mosque. The occupation is trying to impose new policies against Al-Aqsa Mosque, to create a new reality.”
Due to the expected increase in the number of settlers that may raid Al-Aqsa Mosque, al-Kiswani shared: “There is a decision to increase the number of guards and employees, in coordination with the Jordanian Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs”.
He indicated: “There are interventions (by the occupation) to prevent the guards who were employed or re-employed by those previously contracted in 2017. The occupation authorities threatened to arrest the new guards if they start their job.”
He considers that the practices of the occupation authorities are: “A blatant interference in the affairs of Islamic Awqaf. This matter has been reported to the Jordanian Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, and it is addressing the matter with the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs – this is what we were promised.”
Meanwhile, the Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas stressed that it has the right to fight against Zionist occupation, saying the crimes committed by the occupying regime against the Palestinian people are “imprescriptible.”
“The Israeli crimes against our Palestinian people are imprescriptible, and the occupation’s leaders, soldiers, and army would be tried as war criminals for the heinous crimes and massacres they committed against the children and women,” Hamas said in a statement on Friday, on the occasion of Palestinian Martyrs Day.
The movement renewed the pledge of allegiance to the blood of the martyrs, and vowed to continue the path of resistance until the liberation of Palestine and the return of Palestinians to their homeland, from which they were driven out.
“We will remain loyal to the families of the martyrs as they are an authentic part of our people,” the statement said.
Hamas also decried the Zionist regime over the seizure of the bodies of 253 martyrs in the infamous “cemeteries of numbers” for tens of years, decrying the practice as “a Zionist crime” and “a flagrant violation of… human norms and a desperate attempt that won’t succeed to humiliate our people and to discourage them from continuing their legitimate fight to grab their rights and liberate their land,” according to the Palestinian Information Center.