Israeli occupation attacks Palestinians in Al-Aqsa Mosque, uproots 300 olive saplings in Bethlehem

OCCUPIED AL-QUDS, May.5, (ST)- Dozens of Palestinians were injured this morning as a result of the Israeli occupation forces’ attack on them in  Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to WAFA News Agency. 

 

The agency reported that the Israeli occupation forces stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque and opened tear gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets towards Palestinian worshippers, wounding dozens.

 

The occupation forces also sealed off the Qibli prayer area within the mosque compound, denying worshippers access to it and caused damage to 800-year-old Salah Al-Din Minbar (pulpit), located inside the prayer area.

 

They allowed dozens of settlers to barge their way into the courtyards of the site from the direction of the Moroccan Gate, known in Arabic as Bab al-Maghariba, in celebration of what they call Israel’s “Independence Day”, which saw the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 to one million indigenous Palestinians 74 years ago and turning them into refugees to establish a Jewish-majority state in Palestine.

 

During the 2021 Ramadan month, Al-Quds [Jerusalem] witnessed protests and night-time confrontations between Israeli occupation forces and Palestinian worshippers because of the occupation’s decision to ban people from sitting on the stairs outside Bab al-Amoud under the guise of implementing the coronavirus restrictions, and its decision to disconnect the power supply to the call to prayer at the mosque compound.

 

In the coming weeks,  Palestinians will commemorate the Nakba, or “the Catastrophe”, when the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by Zionist militias took place to create the state of Israel in 1948.

 

In another development, dozens of settlers, under the protection of the occupation forces, stormed into Al-Khader town in the west of Bethlehem , attacked Palestinian property, uprooted 300 olive saplings and destroyed agricultural crops on an area of 15 dunums.

 

The settlers, under the protection of the occupation forces, have escalated  their daily attacks on the Palestinians in the west of Bethlehem, especially in the towns of Al-Khader, Ein Al-Qasis and Ein Al-Ghweit, by preventing the Palestinians from accessing their agricultural lands, attacking them, stealing their crops and sabotaging their agricultural properties.

 

Basma Qaddour