Fatah demands Jordan intervene to protect Al-Aqsa

Fatah has called for an “urgent and immediate intervention” from Jordan to stop settlers from attacking Al-Aqsa Mosque.

In a statement to Quds Press yesterday, the group’s spokesman Raafat Alayan said: “What happened in Al-Aqsa Mosque, including raising the Israeli flag and the entrance of weapons into the mosque by settlers with the knowledge of the Israeli police, is a new assault aimed to destabilise the security of the mosque.”

He considered that the arrest of six of the mosque’s guards, who work as employees of the Jordanian Islamic Waqf, as they attempted to prevent the raising of the Israeli flag inside the mosque, as well as the house arrests imposed on others, “a new policy to empty the Al-Aqsa Mosque of its guards.”

Alayan expressed his deep concern about the increasing Israeli attacks on Al-Aqsa, adding that “this step is among the most serious Zionist steps, procedures and practices, because it gives legitimacy and legal status to the Judaisation operations from which Jerusalem has been suffering since 1967 until now.”

On Monday, a Jewish settler of French origin entered Al-Aqsa Mosque through the Al-Mughrabi Gate, on the grounds that he was “a foreigner”. When he reached the Dome of the Rock platform he raised the Israeli flag and started waving it saying: “Here is the State of Israel.” The man was holding a sharp tool which he used to wounded two of Al-Aqsa’s guards. Israeli Special Forces intervened to release the settler and took him under their protection, and arrested seven guards and employees of the Waqf in addition to a Muslim worshipper.