As the holy month of Ramadan approaches, Israeli officials, under the leadership of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right Minister of National Security, have intensified security measures and restrictions in occupied Jerusalem and around Al-Aqsa Mosque. This strategy aims to tighten control over the mosque and limit Palestinian worshippers’ access.<\/p>\n
Ben-Gvir’s plan, branded as ‘deterrence and decisiveness,’ involves enhancing security restrictions, expanding the expulsion policy of Palestinians from Jerusalem, increasing police presence, obstructing the delivery of iftar meals to fasting Palestinians, and hindering their religious activities. This is accompanied by a rise in settler incursions into the mosque, all part of an effort to impose a new security and religious reality on this sacred site for Muslims.On the first Friday of Ramadan, Ben-Gvir, alongside Israeli police officials, stormed the Bab al-Maghariba area leading to the mosque’s courtyards. He assured dozens of police officers of their full support, stating that they would achieve deterrence during Ramadan, asserting that when deterrence is in place, no one would dare to act.<\/p>\n
Ben-Gvir proclaimed that they would employ an ‘iron fist’ against ‘rioters’ (Palestinian worshippers and fasters) at Al-Aqsa, indicating that Israel’s future strategy would rely on escalating security measures to ensure the situation remains under control.Reports from Israeli media, including one from the Hebrew newspaper Maariv, highlight Ben-Gvir’s statements as indicative of the far-right’s desire to alter the status quo at Islamic holy sites in Palestine, particularly Al-Aqsa Mosque, and impose a new security reality in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
In this context, the Jerusalem governorate issued a statement emphasizing that Ben-Gvir’s remarks come amid heightened military actions and restrictions on worshippers in occupied Jerusalem, especially coinciding with Ramadan and associated access limitations to Al-Aqsa Mosque.The statement revealed that Israeli officials have continued to implement logistical plans aimed at restricting Palestinian worshippers’ entry to Al-Aqsa during Ramadan. Since the beginning of the year, over 250 expulsion orders against Palestinians have been issued. The explicit goal is to reduce the number of Palestinian worshippers at Al-Aqsa and deny them their natural right to worship and access their holy sites.<\/p>\n
The Jerusalem governorate stressed that these policies are also a direct assault on Islamic endowments in Jerusalem, targeting their authority to manage Al-Aqsa Mosque, as part of broader efforts by Israelis to impose new realities in Jerusalem and at Al-Aqsa.Security measures in Jerusalem and at Al-Aqsa, along with restrictions against Palestinians, have significantly increased since the appointment of Avshalom Peled, a close associate of Ben-Gvir, as the new police chief for the Jerusalem area. His mandate has seen the implementation of far-right agendas aimed at changing the status quo at Islamic holy sites, especially Al-Aqsa.<\/p>\n
Since the onset of the genocidal war by the Israeli regime against Gaza, police actions against Palestinians in Jerusalem have intensified through repeated incursions into Al-Aqsa, forced closures of Palestinian cultural events, and issuing entry bans for hundreds of Jerusalem residents, alongside accelerated home demolitions in various neighborhoods.Meanwhile, the occupying police have permitted extremist Zionist activists, known as ‘Temple Mount groups,’ to hold Talmudic and provocative ceremonies within the courtyards of Al-Aqsa against Palestinians. This year, as Ramadan begins, Israeli occupation forces have transformed occupied Jerusalem and the areas surrounding Al-Aqsa into a military camp, deploying thousands of police officers and erecting iron barriers at city gates to prevent worshippers from the West Bank from entering.Israeli officials have also initiated widespread expulsions of Palestinians, particularly religious figures, imams, and preachers from Jerusalem, aiming to decrease the number of Palestinians present at Al-Aqsa during Ramadan. The actions taken by the occupying police throughout Ramadan reveal a clear trend towards altering the religious and political landscape in Jerusalem through unprecedented restrictions on Palestinians, escalating settler assaults on Al-Aqsa, and undermining the long-standing status quo.Despite these restrictions, Palestinians continue to resist and assert their presence at Al-Aqsa. Many residents from Jerusalem, the West Bank, and even the 1948 occupied territories travel to Al-Aqsa to perform their religious rituals during Ramadan, countering the occupiers’ policies aimed at diminishing Palestinian presence and altering the existing situation.<\/p>\n
In an analysis of Ben-Gvir’s statements and his purported plan for achieving ‘deterrence’ by encircling Al-Aqsa, Khalid Zbarqa, an expert on Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa issues, explained that Ben-Gvir’s remarks reflect an attempt to exploit religious occasions, particularly Ramadan, to incite against the Palestinian Arab community and Islamic holy sites.Zbarqa noted that this plan by Ben-Gvir is not merely an individual initiative but reflects the policies of the far-right Zionists seeking to alter the cultural, historical, and religious identity of Palestine. He emphasized that Ben-Gvir’s distorted concept of deterrence aims to suppress Palestinians, yet history has shown that pressure and oppression have not instilled fear or retreat among the Palestinian people; rather, it has strengthened their resistance.<\/p>\n
He stressed that the restrictions on Palestinians’ access to Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, the militarization of Jerusalem, the proliferation of police checkpoints, and the expulsion of Palestinians are all failed mechanisms in the face of the popular and religious resistance of the Palestinian community.This expert on Jerusalem concluded that the goal of the Zionists is to empty Al-Aqsa of Palestinian worshippers and attempt to alter the existing situation at this sacred Islamic site. However Palestinians stand firm in their identity faith and social fabric using this Ramadan as a platform for resistance against the oppression of the occupiers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israeli sources reveal Ben-Gvir’s plan to encircle Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan, facing widespread Palestinian resistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":617,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/617"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ghodsnama.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}