Occupied Jerusalem – SafaFor the seventh consecutive day, Israeli occupation forces continue to close the Al-Aqsa Mosque to worshippers, citing security conditions in light of the ongoing war with Iran.Israel’s extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir decided to ban Friday prayers today at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.The Jerusalem Governorate reported that the occupation police informed them that Al-Aqsa Mosque would be closed to worshippers and that Friday prayers would not be held there, which means depriving worshippers of performing Friday prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.She stressed that this is a dangerous precedent that the occupation has not succeeded in imposing before, amid fears of an attempt to establish a new reality that isolates Al-Aqsa Mosque from its surroundings and restricts the access of worshippers to it.She noted that the occupation forces continue, for the seventh day in a row, to close Al-Aqsa Mosque to worshippers, under the pretext of a state of emergency related to the war with Iran, in a dangerous escalation targeting freedom of worship in occupied Jerusalem.Those present in Al-Aqsa are limited to the guards and custodians of the mosque and the employees of the Islamic Waqf Department in Jerusalem who raise the call to prayer at its appointed times and perform the prayers at their appointed times, including Friday prayers. Palestinians say that this closure and the prevention of worshippers from performing their rituals during the month of Ramadan represents “an aggression and a religious war on the freedom of worship, the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the rituals of Muslims.”They warn that it aims to impose a new reality in Al-Aqsa and consolidate complete control over it under security pretexts.For his part, Jerusalem affairs expert Ziad Ibhais said that the occupation has only been able to close the Al-Aqsa Mosque by its own decision on Fridays on four Fridays since its occupation.He explained that the first Friday was on 9-6-1967, two days after the occupation of the city of Jerusalem, and his military forces that had occupied Al-Aqsa were still entrenched there.As for the second Friday, it was on 14-7-2017, following the operation carried out by the three sons of Jabbarin in Al-Aqsa, when the occupation announced the closure of the mosque and began preparing to impose electronic gates, before it was forced to back down from them two weeks later.The third Friday, according to Ibhais, was on 13-6-2025 when the worshippers were expelled and Al-Aqsa was closed in conjunction with the 12-day aggression against Iran, and the fourth was on 20-6-2025 within the same closure.He stressed that the occupation is seeking today to impose the fifth experiment, and to consolidate its ability to cancel Friday prayers whenever it wants, in order to place the sanctity of the mosque and the performance of Islamic rituals in it under the sword of its aggression.Last Saturday morning, the occupation forces closed the Al-Aqsa Mosque, forced the worshippers to leave, and prevented the performance of the Isha and Taraweeh prayers there.The closure of Al-Aqsa Mosque comes in conjunction with the Israeli army’s announcement of a closure of the West Bank, hours after a large-scale attack launched by Israel and the United States on Iran. Al-Aqsa, Friday prayer, Jerusalem, closure
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