OIC blasts allowing Israeli ‘silent prayer’ on al-Aqsa Mosque compound
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) strongly condemns an Israeli court’s handing illegal settlers an excuse to violate the al-Aqsa Mosque compound at will by legalizing their so-called “silent prayer” there.
In a statement on Thursday, the OIC Secretary-General, Yousef bin Ahmed al-Othaimeen, called the decision an “illegal” step in favor of Israeli “extremists,” and one that sought to tamper with the holy site’s status quo.
He condemned any decision that affected “the status of occupied East al-Quds and the Palestinian presence there,” the OIC’s Union of News Agencies (UNA) quoted the statement as saying.
The move “constitutes an unprecedented assault on the inalienable religious rights of the Islamic Ummah (Nation) and its heritage, a provocation to the feelings of Muslims all over the world, and a violation of freedom of worship and the sanctity of holy places,” the agency added.
Such measures, the OIC chief noted, constitute a grave violation of international law, international humanitarian law, and relevant United Nations resolutions.
Earlier, the judge at the Magistrates Court in the holy occupied city of al-Quds, Bilha Yahalom, said that the alleged form of prayer “cannot be considered a ‘criminal act.’”
The compound, Islam’s third-holiest site, is located in the Old City of East al-Quds, which the Israeli regime occupied as part of the entire Palestinian territory of the West Bank during a war in 1967.
The regime has been dotting the territory with hundreds of illegal settlements ever since the occupation.
Israeli settlers already storm the mosque’s compound at least twice every day under full protection of the regime’s forces.
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