Palestine decries Israeli settler tour in Aqsa compound

By Lubaba Zoukan

RAMALLAH (AA) – Palestine has condemned a settler tour in East Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday, saying it reflects Israel’s disregard of decisions taken by a recent Islamic summit in the Saudi city of Makkah.

"Israel is trying to establish the right of Jews in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and to force Muslims to accept the temporal and spatial partition of the mosque," Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Hundreds of settlers forced their way into the flashpoint site on Sunday, in a rare tour in the final days of the fasting month of Ramadan, which ends this week.

The tour has triggered clashes between Muslim worshippers and Israeli police, which chased assaulted a number of worshippers during the violence.

Six worshippers were reportedly arrested during the violence.

The ministry described the “barbarity of the Israeli occupation and its attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its plans to Judaize and impose Israeli control over the site”.

It called on the international community to “assume its legal and moral responsibilities towards Jerusalem and its holy sites” and to “take practical measures to force Israel to comply with international law and resolutions of the international legitimacy."

Sunday’s clashes came amid calls by Jewish groups for settlers to converge on the site to mark what they call the “reunification of Jerusalem”.

On Friday, a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Makkah condemned “any illegal and irresponsible decision that recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel".

The OIC summit also reiterated "rejection of any proposal for peace settlement that does not accord or conform with the legitimate, inalienable rights of the Palestinian people".

Israel has illegally occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

In a move never recognized by the international community, Israel annexed the entire city in 1980, claiming it as the self-proclaimed Jewish state’s “eternal and undivided” capital.

For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world's third-holiest site after Mecca and Medina. Jews, for their part, refer to the area as the “Temple Mount,” claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

International law continues to view both the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territory.