On October 8, 2024, when the Zionists celebrate the so-called biblical "Days of Repentance", as part of the celebrations of the new Jewish year that last from October 4 to 25, a Jewish settler wearing priestly clothes stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard and performed the entire "Priest's Blessings Prayer".
He was joined - as part of the daily storming of the mosque during the Jewish holiday celebrations - by rabbis who performed the ritual of prostration (epic prostration) over the eastern courtyard of "Al-Aqsa" under the auspices of the occupation police, to consecrate the land of the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a "temple".
This dangerous development has prompted researchers in Al-Aqsa Mosque affairs to warn that it may be part of a Zionist plan to establish that this eastern area of the mosque is a Jewish temple, in preparation for building the alleged "temple", and imposing the spatial division of "Al-Aqsa"; Any place for Jews and another for Muslims, after they imposed the temporal division by allowing Zionists to enter and pray on certain days.
Religious victory after military failure
The danger of what is happening is that the religious Zionist movement currently ruling "Israel" and directly represented by the Ministers of Security Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Bezalel Smotrich, seeks to exploit the current wars with the Palestinians, Lebanese, Iran and Yemen to impose a fait accompli in Al-Aqsa Mosque similar to what they did in the Ibrahimi Mosque, which they divided 63% for Jews and 37% for Muslims!
They want to try to snatch a religious victory and impose the Jewish identity on the Al-Aqsa Mosque after the military failure, exploiting the Zionist superiority, and the confusion and silence of the Arabs and Muslims on their massacres.
And to perform the ritual of collective prostration (epic prostration) to express their return to the place of the alleged "temple".
During their current holidays that coincide with October, the settlers and Zionist movements began to intensify their storming of the mosque and praying in its courtyard, violating an old agreement signed in 1976 by Moshe Dayan with the imams of Al-Aqsa that prohibits Jews from praying inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque and allows them to visit only.
Since the Battle of “Sword of Jerusalem” in 2021 and Hamas’s bombing of Jerusalem for the first time in solidarity with Muslims against the settlers’ and occupation’s attacks on worshipers and the people of Jerusalem, the Zionists began to introduce new tools to the Al-Aqsa courtyard to impose this fait accompli.
This included blowing the biblical trumpet, which they did (for the fourth year in a row) on October 3, 2024, entering the courtyard of the mosque in the clothes of the priests of the Temple (responsible for slaughtering the sacrifices) and performing loud prayers, and the epic prostration that only takes place inside the temples and the Temple, coinciding with the celebrations of the beginning of the new Jewish Hebrew year.
This is a radical change in the way the raids are carried out, which now include performing prayers and religious rituals in full on a daily basis, after previously only performing oral prayers, according to Dr. Abdullah Marouf, Professor of Jerusalem Studies and former Media and Public Relations Officer at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
But what is new this year is the attempt by the Temple groups and religious Zionism to make the war an opportunity to decide control and impose sovereignty over Al-Aqsa, exploiting the silence of Arabs and Muslims. This is supported by the intentions announced by the Prime Minister of the occupation, Benjamin Netanyahu, to create a new Middle East with a Jewish identity, as he spoke within two weeks about “pursuing the enemies and eliminating them as written in the Torah,” and that “the time of the Messiah has come to establish the Kingdom of the Jews,” and he is telling the “Israelis” that they will be victorious, and that he will fulfill “Isaiah’s prophecy,” in destroying the Palestinians and Arabs and describing them as “sons of darkness.”
The religious Zionism (Hardali Salvationism) movement, to which Ben Gvir and Smortish belong, adopts the most extreme interpretation of the idea of Jewish salvation and the coming of the awaited savior, who will make the Jews leaders of the world, and build the temple on the ruins of “Al-Aqsa”.
These movements of revolutionary, corrective or secular religious Zionists see the building of the “Third Temple” as the key to solving all the problems and misfortunes of the Jews, especially religious and spiritual ones, and they see themselves as “God’s tool to bring the coming of the savior closer”.
Sheikh Kamal Al-Khatib described these Zionist attacks on “Al-Aqsa” as an attempt to exploit the opportunity in the current circumstances to establish facts on the ground of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and said: The blessed “Al-Aqsa” will remain the solid rock on which the centuries of the occupiers, colonizers, arrogant and conceited have been shattered and broken.
Referring to Netanyahu's plans and his extremist ministers, he said: Whoever thinks that in light of the euphoria and riot he is experiencing, he will make Al-Aqsa Mosque his golden opportunity to impose a new reality, is delusional; because the solidity of Al-Aqsa Mosque shatters the centuries of rioters and dispels their illusions and dreams.
Is Al-Aqsa in existential danger?
According to the assessment of the position of the International Jerusalem Foundation regarding Al-Aqsa Mosque as an existential battle, the occupation is trying after the "Al-Aqsa Flood" to respond - religiously - by re-crystallizing a strategy to decide on "Al-Aqsa", through religious substitution and an attempt to establish the alleged "temple"; which makes the battle of "Al-Aqsa" an existential battle.
The assessment prepared by researcher in Al-Aqsa affairs, Ziad Abhais, suggested that this season will be the fiercest season of aggression against "Al-Aqsa", and that the Zionist leadership will deal with the anniversary of the "Al-Aqsa Flood" and address the October 7 complex by violating "Al-Aqsa" and threatening it existentially through attempts to liquidate its identity and Judaize it; Therefore, he called for the necessity of pressuring the official Arab regime to obtain any positive position and stop the deterioration of its position ceilings.
The same thing is warned by Dr. Abdullah Marouf, Professor of Jerusalem Studies, stressing that the mosque is no longer only threatened in the usual season of attacks, but is now facing an existential danger that threatens its entire entity.
He explained, in an analysis published on the Al Jazeera website on September 19, 2024, that the far-right occupation government is trying to exploit the anniversary of Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” to pass political and religious messages that deepen the danger of Judaization, and the Jewish Heritage Ministry seeks to falsify the history of occupied Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque and promote Jewish myths, to consolidate the occupation’s narrative about the area of the mosque and the history of Jerusalem as a whole.
On August 27, 2024, the ministry issued an official decision, the first of its kind, to finance the settlers’ storming of “Al-Aqsa” and promote Jewish heritage in a historical form devoid of Palestinian narratives, i.e. Judaizing these narratives.
On August 29, the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz confirmed that the occupation's plan to build the "Temple" and demolish Al-Aqsa Mosque is based on an extremist Jewish religious doctrine and the collusion of the extremist American evangelical movement with them. It confirmed that the extreme Zionist messianic right, which is currently in power in Netanyahu's government, is very serious about rebuilding the "Temple".
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