Hamas calls for defending Islamic sites in West Bank against Israeli violations
The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has lambasted the regular desecration of the Ibrahimi Mosque and the al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli settlers as “a practice targeting the Palestinian presence.”
The resistance movement’s spokesman, Fawz Barhoum, made the remark in a statement on Sunday, adding that the Israeli settlers’ break-ins at the two mosques “are part of the religious war being waged by the Israeli regime on the Palestinian people and their holy sites.”
The Ibrahimi Mosque, known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs, is situated in al-Khalil (Hebron), in the southern parts of the occupied West Bank. Revered by both Muslims and Jews, the holy site complex is believed to mark the burial sites of Prophets Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Following a massacre of Palestinian worshipers by an extremist settler in 1994, the complex was divided between Muslim and Jewish worshipers.
However, the Israeli military almost regularly closes Ibrahimi Mosque to Muslim worshipers and allows extremist settlers to enter the whole sacred site to observe their rituals.
The al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied Old City of East Jerusalem al-Quds sits just above the Western Wall plaza and houses both the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque.
According to an agreement signed between the Israeli regime and the Jordanian government after Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem al-Quds in 1967, non-Muslim worship at the compound is prohibited.
However, hard-line Israeli legislators and extremist settlers regularly storm the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a provocative move that infuriates Palestinians.
The Hamas statement came a day after thousands of Israeli settlers violated the Ibrahimi Mosque under tight military protection, while Muslim worshipers were completely denied access to the holy site.
According to a report by the official Palestinian News Agency WAFA, Israeli soldiers also forced shop owners to close their businesses in the vicinity of the mosque and prevented local residents from being present in nearby areas.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Barhoum stressed that the violations of the Islamic holy sites would be met with action and resistance by the Palestinian people.
He also called on the Palestinian people to “fight a real battle” with the occupation and settlers and defend the holy sites.
Palestinians want the occupied West Bank as part of a future independent state, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.
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