Israel seals off Ibrahimi Mosque’s yard: Palestinian official

Israeli occupation forces have closed the courtyard of the Ibrahimi Mosque in occupied Hebron, and begun carrying out work in it, in what Palestinians have said is an effort to ‘Judaise’ it. Hebron is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinian Muslims and about 500 hardline Jewish settlers who live in a series of Jewish-only enclaves heavily guarded by Israeli troops. The mosque was split to make way for a synagogue after the 1994 massacre in which extremist Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein attacked Palestinian worshippers killing 29 people and injuring 150 others.

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Israeli occupation forces sealed the yard of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron in an attempt to change its features, a Palestinian official said today.

“The Israeli authorities are constantly seeking to change the features of the mosque and Judaise it,” Ghassan Al-Rajabi, an official with the Hebron Endowments Authority, told Anadolu.

He termed the Israeli move as a “grave assault” on the Muslim place of worship.

“The mosque is a purely Islamic endowment and Israeli authorities have no right to it,” he said.

“Israel is exploiting the state of war [in Gaza] to implement their agenda by seizing holy sites,” Al-Rajabi said.

After the massacre of 29 Palestinian worshippers in 1994 inside the mosque by Jewish extremist settler, Baruch Goldstein, Israeli authorities divided the mosque complex between Muslim and Jewish worshippers. However occupation forces regularly close the mosque off to Muslim worshippers in order to allow settlers to mark festivals.

Hebron is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinian Muslims and about 500 hardline Jewish settlers who live in a series of Jewish-only enclaves heavily guarded by Israeli troops.

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