Hamas condemns Israel’s plans to fund incursions into Al-Aqsa mosque

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has slammed as a “dangerous escalation” Israel’s stated plans to fund further incursions into the Al-Aqsa mosque.

In a statement on Tuesday, Hamas said Israel is “playing with fire” and that any such move would ignite a widespread religious war.

Hamas said the regime’s “decision to fund Zionist tours of Al-Aqsa Mosque is a dangerous escalation and playing with fire, leading the region towards a religious war for which the occupation and its supporters will bear responsibility.”

“We call on our people and our nation to mobilize, rally, and stand in solidarity in defense of our people and our sanctities,” it added.

The group said the regime would not succeed in erasing historical facts, and that the holy mosque will remain purely an Islamic site.

It called on Palestinians across the occupied territories to make frequent visits to the Al-Aqsa mosque and resist Israel’s violations there.

Hamas also called for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)'s serious action to foil such Israeli plots.

The group encouraged the Arab and Islamic nations to protest the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and their lands.

Israeli politicians have long violated the delicate arrangement and facilitated raids on the holy site and performed rituals.

During his recent provocative visit, Israeli extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said that it was his “policy” to allow Jewish prayers on the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third-holiest site where only Muslims are allowed to pray under a status quo arrangement originally reached more than a century ago.

The OIC said it was a "provocation to the feelings of Muslims all over the world."

This week Ben-Gvir revealed his intention to build a Jewish synagogue inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied East al-Quds is a dangerous declaration.

He said that if he could, he would build a synagogue on the al-Asqa Mosque complex.

"If I could do what I wanted, a synagogue would also be established on the Temple Mount," Ben Gvir, who has a long record of making inflammatory statements, told Israel's Army Radio on Monday morning.

Iran slams Israeli scheme to build synagogue within Al-Aqsa Mosque

It has been the first time Israeli minister Ben-Gvir openly speaks about building a synagogue inside the complex.

Hamas called on Palestinian youth to mobilize at the al-Aqsa compound to maintain a presence in its courtyards and to confront the plans of the occupying regime.

"We also call on our valiant resistance and our revolutionary youth in the occupied West Bank to escalate their clashes with the criminal enemy and its settler herds," the statement read.

The recent violation of the al-Aqsa Mosque's sanctity came at a time when nearly 11 months of a genocidal Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip has exposed the terrorist nature of the occupying regime to the world.

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