The Zionist occupation forces began from the first day of the occupation of Jerusalem, on June 7, 1967, directly by attacking the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, preventing the first Friday prayer after the occupation on June 9 in the mosque, and immediately after the occupation began on June 11 by demolishing the AL-Maghriba lane completely adjacent to the mosque; which means that the occupation opened fire on the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the first day of the occupation of Jerusalem, then occupied the honor Lane completely adjacent to the AL-Maghriba lane, and became a lane for Jews in the occupied city of Jerusalem.

Perhaps the crime of burning the Al-Aqsa Mosque, on August 21, 1969, is considered one of the painful stations for the brutal assault on the Muslim holy sites, and during the 56 years of the occupation of "Al-Aqsa" there are too many stations to introduce explosives into it or attempts to burn it more than once were thwarted by its guards.

The battle to target "Al-Aqsa" began to take an organized form after the year 2000, and there are 4 strategies in which the occupation targeted Muslim shrines and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular.

Temporal and spatial division

The first strategy is time division. It began to be talked about immediately after the visit of the mortal "Sharon" to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 2000. This strategy became public in 2003, when it was demanded to divide the mosque chronically between Muslims and Jews, so that it would be emptied 9 hours for Muslims, and 9 hours for Jews. Then this strategy continued to work until now. But the occupation, which did not quite succeed in the strategy of temporal division, moved directly to the implementation of the second strategy, namely spatial division. The spatial division means cutting off part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and turning it into synagogues and biblical schools. The first target of the occupation was the southwestern corner of the mosque, which is the space between the Islamic Museum and the tribal mosque. Settlers and Temple organizations preferred to target this spot (an area of almost 3,000 square meters of the mosque), and this strategy failed in the "Battle of Knives" in 2015.

The occupation has achieved some achievements, but it has not succeeded in the temporal and spatial division as it would like. But they were able to schedule two break-in periods, five days a week, the whole week, except Friday and Saturday. The occupation carries out the break-in in the morning from 7 to 11 am and after the noon prayer until 3 pm.  Fixing these periods of intrusion almost becomes a reality for many Muslims, which is undoubtedly a great achievement for them. But that's not what they were planning.  The occupation wants to close "Al-Aqsa" 150 days a year (52 Saturdays and 100 days a year are Jewish holidays), and this means closing "Al-Aqsa" to Muslims almost half of the year.

After the occupation failed to target the southwestern corner of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Zionists ' attention moved to the eastern area of Al-Aqsa and Bab ar-Rahma mosque. They started targeting this area in 2003, when the Bab ar-Rahma mosque was closed for 16 years, until the "Hibat Bab ar-Rahma" in 2019. The Jerusalemites opened Bab ar-Rahma mosque when they felt that the entire eastern region was being targeted and that the threat of an attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque was almost turning from a daily attack to cutting off an expensive part of the mosque, which is the eastern region and its area is approaching 20 thousand square meters, in which the Bab ar-Rahma mosque, of course.

Intruders who enter through the door of the Moroccans in the south-western corner of the mosque used to go straight to the East and then go towards the eastern area and there they stay as long as possible. Then they go out of the chain door (Bab As- Selsila), and while they are in the eastern area of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, all the Jewish rituals that were forbidden to them before 2020 are performed. They started with the legalization of silent prayer, then took the blessings of the priests, and indeed they succeeded in introducing vegetable offerings in October 2022 and deliberately left them in the eastern region so that we could see them and know that they had introduced them into the mosque.

The most dangerous strategy

Then the third strategy began. This strategy considers the Al-Aqsa Mosque to be an existing Jewish temple, and this has been going on for only 3 years. Therefore, the rabbis legalized many attacks on the "Al-Aqsa". In 2021, we witnessed the Battle of the "Sword of Al-Quds" as a result of an attempt to empty the mosque from Muslim worshippers in the last ten days of Ramadan. We have also witnessed more than once attempts to empty it from the stationed when the Hebrew Passover intersected with the month of Ramadan over the course of 3 years. The occupation began to treat "Al-Aqsa" as equating the authentic Islamic sanctuary with the foreign Jewish sanctuary. Therefore, the occupation was keen, for example, during the corona pandemic, when Al-Aqsa was closed for more than 70 days, to delay the opening of the mosque for two days so that intruders could enter it on the same day when it is open for Muslims to perform dawn prayer. Therefore, it was stormed at 7 a.m., two hours after the Fajr prayer, in order to convey the idea of equating the Muslim holy with the Jewish holy.

The occupier is still using this strategy, which is to regard "Al-Aqsa" as a Jewish Temple. Therefore, Temple Organizations are calling for the implementation of all Jewish rituals inside the mosque and the threat of major break-ins and the introduction of animal sacrifices into it. This means that they are slaughtered on a special altar so that every drop of blood that falls from it is collected and then this blood is scattered in the synagogue. Do we accept as Muslims that the blood of animal sacrifices is scattered in our blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque!?

The fourth strategy

The fourth strategy is also very risky. This strategy is to keep the symbols and leaders away from the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Since the occupation began by inventing the punishment of deportation from" Al-Aqsa", then deportation from the city of Jerusalem, and then travel ban, many activists and observers, such as Sheikh Najah Bakirat, Sheikh Ekrema Sabri, and countless Jerusalemites, have been subjected to these sanctions. This punishment is considered a great assault on them and the holy places, because it aims to empty the Islamic sanctuary of the role models and senior observants who lead the observances and picketing in "Al-Aqsa".

From this rostrum, we call on all Palestinians who have access to Al-Aqsa Mosque to maintain their position and protect the mosque as much as possible, in addition to the support of all the peoples of the Islamic nation for the Jerusalemites who are facing the occupation with their bare chests.

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Read the article in Arabic

*Member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars & Palestine Scholars Association.