The Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs said today, Thursday, that settlers, under the protection of the Israeli occupation forces, stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque 21 times, while the occupation prevented the call to prayer 52 times at the Ibrahimi Mosque during the past December.

The ministry confirmed in its monthly report that 21 stormings of Al-Aqsa by settlers were monitored, and the occupation authorities, coinciding with the Jewish Feast of (Sukkot), imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinians coming from Jerusalem and the 1948 territories, scrutinizing their identities and detaining some at its external gates.

It pointed out that the occupation is striving hard to implement its plans through these violations to realize its vision of temporal and spatial division inside Al-Aqsa Mosque with its mosques, courtyards, and facilities, where daily, except for Fridays and Saturdays, a series of violations and stormings by settlers under the protection of the occupation police take place, in an attempt to impose full control over the noble sanctuary and divide it temporally and spatially.

The report indicated that the occupation tightened its military procedures around Al-Aqsa Mosque, especially on Fridays, preventing citizens from entering to perform the Friday prayer, scrutinizing their identities, and barring those outside the Old City from entering it. The number of worshippers inside Al-Aqsa on Fridays has decreased to 5,000 since October 7 until now due to Israeli restrictions.

Regarding the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron, the report monitored the occupation forces preventing the call to prayer there 52 times.

The Minister of Awqaf and Religious Affairs condemned the storming of 89 occupation army personnel into the sanctuary, the closure of the so-called checkpoints 160 and Abu al-Reesh in front of worshippers, preventing worshippers’ entrance except through the Bab Harat al-Muhtasib gate only, and the continued use of jamming devices on the sanctuary’s internal speakers.

The ministry monitored the bombing by occupation aircraft and its destruction of hundreds of mosques, whether completely or partially, in the Gaza Strip during the brutal Israeli aggression on the Strip, causing serious damage to three churches. The occupation also bombed the Al-Ansar Mosque in Jenin camp, which resulted in the martyrdom of several civilians and inflicted serious damage to the mosque.

In a related context, Palestinian prisoner institutions said that there are 51 female detainees from the Gaza Strip held in the Israeli Damon prison, among them elderly women and girls, but the number of detainees from Gaza is higher than this number, although the clear data relates only to detainees of (Damon) prison.

The institutions indicated in their statement that what is available about the detainees are only their names and some information conveyed by the detainees about their conditions, as they face continuous maltreatment and humiliation, and they are held in tragic conditions, like all Gaza detainees. The institutions have not been able to obtain precise information about their numbers, their places of detention, or their health conditions, as the occupation continues the crime of enforced disappearance against them, preventing legal teams of human rights institutions from visiting them and inspecting their conditions. It also refuses to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit them.

It drew attention to the only data announced by the occupation prison administrations, which is the presence of 661 Gaza detainees whom they classified as illegal fighters.

It is noted that the total number of detainees in occupation prisons until the end of December is 8,800, and the number of administrative detainees is 3,291.