OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)
The Israeli occupation police issued an order on Tuesday banning an Islamic Awqaf employee from entering the Aqsa Mosque for several months.
Rami al-Khatib, who works as a media officer for the Islamic Awqaf Administration in Jerusalem, was ordered to stay away from the Aqsa Mosque and the areas around it for six months.
The Israeli police offered no legal justification for their action against Khatib. However, this measure is believed to be part of ongoing restrictions targeting Awqaf employees and Muslim worshipers who frequent the Aqsa Mosque.
In a related context, Palestinian officials and activists have urged their compatriots to intensify their presence at the Aqsa Mosque nowadays to confront settler groups’ intents to stage mass break-ins at the holy site in mid-May.
They stressed the importance of challenging Israeli restrictions and military measures in the holy city and visiting the holy site on a daily basis to protect it against desecration by Jewish settlers.
Senior Hamas official Majed Abu Qutaish, for his part, has strongly denounced extremist Rabbi Yehuda Glick and other far-right Israeli officials for persisting in defiling the Aqsa Mosque, warning of their attempt to change the status quo at the Islamic holy site.
“These organized practices, backed by the extremist occupation government, will not succeed in changing the Aqsa Mosque’s identity or stripping our people and nation of their rightful religious and historical ties to it,” he said on Tuesday.
