Egypt condemned in the strongest terms the storming of Al Aqsa Mosque by Israeli and assaulting worshippers, including women, deeming it a “blatant” violation of all international laws and norms.
In a statement released by the Foreign Ministry on Thursday, Egypt noted that such heinous and reprehensible scenes, and repeated Israeli violations of the sanctity of the holy sites, ignite the feelings of wrath and fury among the Palestinians and the Islamic peoples as well as people of good conscience worldwide.
It also called on the Israeli authorities to immediately stop these attacks that terrify the worshipers, who have taken a safe haven in the house of God during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Egypt holds the occupying power responsible for this dangerous escalation, which could undermine the truce efforts in which Egypt is engaged with regional and international partners, the statement read.
The foreign ministry called upon the international community to assume its responsibility and put an end to these attacks, and to spare the region more factors of instability and tension.
In the early hours of yesterday the Israeli police broke into Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied East Jerusalem, forcefully removing hundreds of worshippers performing the itikaf (seclusion for prayers) and tahajjud (night prayers) at the Al-Aqsa holy compound.
Videos that went viral on the social media showed the Israeli police breaking into Al-Aqsa, and beating worshipers with clubs and firing gas bombs and sound grenades inside the mosque.
Witnesses and medics said the Israeli police used excessive force to remove the worshippers who closed the gates to the Qibli building in the compound to prevent the police from entering it, according to the Palestine News and Information Agency (WAFA).
Medics said they were prevented by the police from entering the compound to help the worshippers, many of whom were detained while others were beaten and forced to leave the walled compound.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced these the “systematic attacks’ against the Palestinians at Al-Aqsa Mosque, saying in a statement that it considered them ‘a serious violation of the most basic principles of human rights, especially with regard to the practice of worship.’
The ministry said that up to 500 worshippers were detained in the raid, and ambulances were prevented from attending to hundreds of injured ones.
It called on the ‘international community and the free people of the world to abide by their legal and moral responsibilities towards Jerusalem and to work to force the Israeli occupation to stop its Judaising policies aimed at changing the Arab and Islamic character of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the city of Jerusalem’.
Israeli aggressions at Al-Aqsa drew condemnation from several Arab countries and the Arab League, whose Secretary-General Ahmed Abu el-Gheit, calling on the international community to compel Israel to stop the ‘dangerous escalation on the ground in the occupied territories’.
Meanwhile, Al Azhar Observatory for Combating Extremism condemned the Israeli storming into Al Aqsa Mosque and the aggression against worshipers.
In a statement issued yesterday, the observatory asserted that Israel aims at evacuating the mosque to enable extremist settlers to storm it and celebrate Passover.
The observatory urged the Arab and Islamic world to work on halting the criminal actions of the Israelis.
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