Around 300 Israeli settlers forcefully entered al-Aqsa Mosque on Monday morning through the Maghariba Gate, under the full protection of Israeli occupation police forces.

The incursion coincided with the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah and included the blowing of the shofar within the Mosque courtyards, a provocative attempt to impose Talmudic rituals and create new Judaization realities at one of Islam’s holiest sites.

Since the early hours, Israeli police have enforced strict security measures throughout occupied Jerusalem, establishing numerous military checkpoints across the Old City and severely restricting access for Palestinian worshippers to al-Aqsa.

The Islamic Waqf Department in Jerusalem reported that settlers conducted tours inside the Mosque courtyards, chanting, clapping, and performing rituals linked to the so-called “Temple” in the eastern section of the holy compound. Observers condemned the actions as an assault on the Mosque’s sanctity and a blatant attempt to distort the historical and religious identity of Jerusalem.

Israeli authorities had announced heightened security arrangements for the Jewish holidays, officially beginning on Tuesday, signaling an expected increase in settler raids at al-Aqsa. Extremist settler groups had called on their followers to storm the Mosque in record numbers between September 22–24 to entrench Jewish rituals inside the Islamic site.

Experts warn that these repeated incursions form part of a systematic campaign to erase Jerusalem’s Islamic and historical heritage, impose spatial and temporal divisions within the Mosque, and undermine Muslim sovereignty over the sacred compound.

Al-Aqsa has faced near-daily incursions by settlers, accompanied by Israeli police forces, excluding Fridays and Saturdays. These raids have intensified since the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in October 2023. Thousands of similar settler raids have been carried out under police protection, alongside tightened restrictions on Palestinian worshippers entering the Mosque and the Old City.

Palestinian authorities and religious leaders condemned the latest storming as part of ongoing attempts to Judaize the holy site and called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for its violations of Palestinian religious and cultural rights. (ILKHA)