Settlers place menorah on Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron

Israeli Jewish settlers yesterday placed a menorah on the roof of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, a Palestinian minister said, noting it was a “dangerous precedent”, Quds Press reported.

Minister of Waqf and Religious Affairs Sheikh, Yousif Ideis, said that this “aggression” is classified as part of the “relentless Judaisation” efforts of the mosque, considering it a “flagrant violation” of an Islamic site.

He referred to the Israeli measures taken in the wake of the Jewish massacre carried out against the Palestinian worshippers in the mosque in 1994. The Israeli occupation “expropriated” large areas of the mosque and allocated it for Jewish use only.

Edeis said that the remaining part of the mosque is considered occupied because the Israeli occupation controls the Muslim call to prayer and the time of entering the mosque and leaving it and even the age of the worshippers who pray inside it.

Read: 40,000 Israeli settlers storm into Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron

The minister noted that the mosque has been exposed to more than 20 Israeli “violations” including the banning of the adhan – Muslim call to prayer – during 2017.

He reiterated that the Israeli occupation has been continuous in its “covert and overt” Judaisation, citing the permanent siege imposed on the mosque, the use of electronic detectors and barricades around it, as well as the full closure of the mosque for at least ten days every year.

Earlier this year, UNESCO ruled that the Ibrahimi Mosque in the occupied Old City of Hebron is a Palestinian World Heritage Site threatened by Israel.