GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has warned the Zionist regime of dire consequences if the regime does not end recurrent violation of the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
In a statement, Hamas spokesman Mohamed Hamada denounced the occupying regime’s attempts to obstruct maintenance and restoration work at the Mosque’s premises, calling on Al-Quds people to further frequent the mosque under these circumstances.
Hamas also censured the occupying regime’s aggression against Islamic Awqaf officials and employees of the Islamic Awqaf in the holy city.
The warning came after Zionist regime authorities blocked the appointment of new Palestinian security guards at the Al-Aqsa compound, threatening Palestine’s Islamic Waqf with arrest if they refuse to comply.
Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, the mosque’s veteran Palestinian imam, said that the Waqf, a religious trust that administers the Al-Aqsa compound, needs new guards as there have been no new appointees to oversee the sacred esplanade since 2017.
Usually, the Waqf nominates a list of names of guards and sends it to Jordan’s Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs for approval. Jordan acts as a custodian of the sacred compound in Al-Quds as part of a joint agreement with the occupying regime.
However, this time Zionist regime authorities have objected to the procedure, saying that the Waqf in Al-Quds should run the list by them first before final approval of the new security staff.
Zionist legislators and settlers regularly and provocatively intrude into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, infuriating the 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.
In October 2021, a regime court upheld a ban on Jewish prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, after an earlier decision by a lower court stirred outrage among various Palestinians and across the Muslim world.
In May the same year, 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 occupying 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.
Demolition of mosques by Zionists is also commonplace across the Palestinian land. The United Nations has reported a 21-percent increase in the number of Palestinian structures that were confiscated or destroyed last year. The Palestinian Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs has time and again condemned the occupying regime over the matter, describing the move as a “clear attack on the holy sites and religious places for Muslims.”