Occupied Jerusalem: Palestinian National Council President Rawhi Fattouh said the escalating calls to march into Al-Aqsa Mosque during Jewish holidays, impose religious rituals inside its compound, and promote plans to establish what is being dubbed the "Third Temple" on its ruins represent a dangerous shift from policies of Judaization toward imposing a religious and sovereign reality by force and running roughshod over the existing status quo.
In a statement Saturday, Fattouh added that the Mosque, with its entire compound, prayer halls and courtyards, constitutes an indivisible spatial and religious unity, and that any tampering with its historical and legal status quo or the imposition of bizarre rituals upon it amounts to an outright breach of freedom of worship and of the obligations imposed by international law on the occupying power, which cannot be allowed to run roughshod over those obligations.
Converting this mosque into a methodical religious battleground and raising incitement to bring an alleged Temple to replace it unequivocally reveals the nature of the projects that go beyond merely taking over the land to singling out one of the pre-eminent Islamic sanctities for provocation of more than a billion Muslims, Fattouh noted.
He warned that these attempted actions set the stage for widening the cycle of conflict and imperiling regional and international peace.
Fattouh held the colonial far-right government that backs extremist Jewish groups fully responsible for what is unfolding at Al-Aqsa Mosque, calling on nations and international institutions to assume their legal responsibilities and take immediate and compelling measures to halt incursions and provocative rites, in addition to precluding any attempt to alter the historic and legal character of Jerusalem and its religious sites.
The Jerusalem Governorate said that Al-Aqsa Mosque had been stormed by 40,661 settlers from the beginning of the year through the end of last month.
This figure puts the escalating decisions to bar Palestinians from the mosque in their broader context. As the circle of Jerusalemites barred from reaching Al-Aqsa continues to widen, settler incursions are also continuing at a high rate, in a parallel course aimed at restricting the Palestinian presence on the one hand while expanding the presence and incursions of settlers on the other.
