Palestinian pres. spokesman: Israel undermining regional security, dragging region into religious war

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, says Israel is undermining the security and stability of the region, warning that Tel Aviv is dragging the region into a religious war that will burn the entire region.

Rudeineh's comments on Sunday came hours after Israeli forces and extremist settlers stormed the courtyards of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds, as the regime’s police attacked Muslim worshippers there and detained many of them.

“By continuing its policy of incursions into religious places, as is happening today in the al-Aqsa Mosque, Israel is defying the Palestinian people and disregarding international positions, especially the American position which demanded [Israel] to adhere to the status quo in Jerusalem [al-Quds],” Rudeineh said, Palestine's official Wafa news agency reported.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Rudeineh added that attacks in al-Aqsa came in the context of the ongoing suspicious attack on the Palestinian national project. 

“But the national project will not be defeated, and Jerusalem, the independent national decision and the steadfastness of the Palestinian people will preserve the [Palestinian] identity and protect the holy sites,” he noted.

Citing witnesses, Wafa reported that dozens of Israeli police officers began raiding the holy site through the Chain and Moroccan gates before they started beating and assaulting the Muslim worshipers, who were attending prayers at the holy site.

The Israeli police also fired stun grenades and tear gas canisters at the Muslim worshipers and forced many of them out of the holy site.

The report said the Israeli police conducted the brutal raid in an attempt to make way for the entry of hundreds of Israeli settlers there

Witnesses further said that the Israeli police locked down the southern main building inside the holy site, and hundreds of Muslim worshipers were left inside and were unable to leave. Later, groups of Israeli settlers stormed the courtyards after they were almost forcibly emptied of all Muslim worshippers.

According to the report, the Israeli extremist groups kept calling on hordes of fanatic settlers to force their way into the al-Aqsa complex in large numbers on Sunday, on the occasion of the anniversary of what Israel calls “the destruction of the temple.”

The al-Aqsa Mosque compound sits just above the Western Wall plaza and houses both the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque.

The Jewish visitation of al-Aqsa is permitted but according to an agreement signed between Israel and the Jordanian government after Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem al-Quds in 1967, non-Muslim worship at the compound is prohibited.

Tel Aviv, however, often allows hardline Israeli legislators and extremist settlers to storm the holy site and carry out religious rituals in defiance of the accord, a provocative move that infuriates Palestinians.

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