The Arab League on Thursday condemned the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque by thousands of Israelis under police protection and with the participation of government ministers. More than 4,200 Israeli settlers and members of far-right groups, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem for Tisha B’Av, a Jewish day of mourning that marks the destruction twice of an ancient Jewish temple believed to have stood at the site known to Muslims as Al-Aqsa and to Jews as the Temple Mount. Palestinian officials said Israeli forces imposed tight restrictions at the mosque’s gates, barred large numbers of Palestinian worshippers and students from entering, and assaulted several worshippers. While non-Muslims are allowed to visit Islam’s third holiest site, they are forbidden from praying there as part of a 1967 agreement. In a statement, Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Fahmy affirmed that the Israeli entity has no sovereignty over occupied Jerusalem or its Islamic and Christian holy sites, and that its attempts to alter the existing legal and historical status quo in the Old City constitute a violation of international law. (Gulf Times) Fahmy also noted that the Jerusalem Waqf and Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs Department, of the Jordanian Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, is the sole authority responsible for managing the affairs of Al-Aqsa Mosque and regulating entry to it. The Jerusalem governorate described Ben-Gvir’s entry as a dangerous escalation, saying it reflected official Israeli backing for actions previously associated with groups advocating for the reconstruction of a Jewish temple at the site. The Palestinian presidency called the incursions a “dangerous escalation” designed to enforce a temporal and spatial division of the site, asserting that the compound remains an exclusively Islamic place of worship over which Israel holds no legal sovereignty. Jordan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Ambassador Fouad Majali, warned that Ben-Gvir’s action violates the site’s historical and legal status quo.
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