Widespread condemnation of settlers' storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque ahead of the "flag march"
The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Thursday (May 14th) condemned the Israeli incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque and the organization of a "flag march" in the Old City, on the "anniversary of the occupation of Jerusalem", warning against dragging the region into a religious conflict, calling on the international community to intervene to stop government-backed provocations.
Jordan, as the custodian of the holy sites, also denounced the violations and restrictions imposed on worshippers, and the positions of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey were firm in rejecting attempts to Judaize the city and change its Arab and Islamic identity.
The Palestinian presidency and foreign ministry condemned these infiltrations directed at the Palestinians and their religious symbols and beliefs, calling for an end to these provocations and violations.
Settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque
On Thursday, May 14, hundreds of Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque with the celebrations of the so-called "Hebrew anniversary of the occupation of Jerusalem", and performed provocative celebrations, while the occupation authorities restricted the entry of Palestinian worshippers.
The Jerusalem Governorate said that settlers have carried out a series of incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque since the morning under heavy protection from the Israeli army, and performed Talmudic rituals inside its courtyards, in a step as part of what the settlers call the "compensatory incursion" associated with the Hebrew occasion.
The governorate stated that the Israeli police imposed strict measures against worshippers in Al-Aqsa Mosque in an attempt to evacuate it in front of the settlers' incursions, and also assaulted a number of men and women by pushing and beating them at the gates of the mosque.
Demands to facilitate settler movements
Earlier, 22 Israeli officials called on the Israeli police to allow settlers to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque on May 14 and 15, in a letter signed by nine ministers and 13 lawmakers.
Thousands of Israeli nationalists marched through Jerusalem's Old City Muslim Quarter amid tight security.
Markets and neighborhoods in the Old City witnessed attacks and provocations carried out by settlers, while Israeli forces forced merchants in the area to close their shops, coinciding with the "Flag March", amid the closure of a number of roads in occupied Jerusalem.
"Flag March"
The roots of the "Flag March" go back to 1968, when it began as a symbolic gesture led by the extremist rabbi Yehuda Hazani to commemorate the occupation and forcibly annexation of East Jerusalem during the 1967 war, and later turned under government auspices and by order of the Knesset in 1986 into an official political tool to impose the occupation narrative and consecrate the so-called "unification of Jerusalem."
This annual event aims primarily at trying to impose full Zionist sovereignty over the holy city, and to try to obliterate its Arab and Islamic cultural features through national parades that seek to displace the original awareness and identity of the place.
To this end, the march from the western part of the city is a basic starting point, before the crowds of settlers, supported by an extensive arsenal of Israeli police, deliberately head deep into the historic Palestinian neighborhoods in an attempt to allow public space and change the demographic reality of the city by force and military restrictions.