What happened at Al-Aqsa Mosque?

Hundreds of illegal Israeli settlers on Tuesday stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied East Jerusalem to mark Israeli Independence Day.

According to a statement from the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, the settlers loudly sung, performed Talmudic prayers, and waved Israeli flags within the boundaries of Islam’s third-holiest site.

The Jordanian-run organization in charge of overseeing the site denounced the settlers’ conduct “in the strongest terms”.

According to the Jerusalem Waqf, the invasions took place in the midst of a heavy police presence in the mosque and its environs, with the purpose of keeping worshippers from entering the premises.

“Over the past few days, the Endowments Council has been monitoring the size of the crowding and media incitement by extremist groups against the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, through their calls and threats to target the mosque via raids on the occasion of what is known as the occupying state’s ‘Independence Day’,” the body said.

“This scandalous violation was added to an unending series of unprecedented violations against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque,” it added.

Only Muslims are permitted entry to the sacred site, and the Council called on the Arab and Islamic countries to “assume their responsibility towards one of the most important mosques for Muslims” and to put pressure on the Israeli government to stop violating it.

At least 526 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa on Tuesday, according to data provided by the body.

Among the groups calling for the provocative incursion was the far-right and Jewish supremacist Lehava organisation, whose members have been sanctioned and banned on social media for inciting violence.

Lehava appeared to provoke last week’s storming of Al-Aqsa by putting up a large banner that read, “On Independence Day, we will raise the flag in the mosque,” on a building overlooking a major roadway in West Jerusalem, according to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the Arabic sister site of The New Arab.