Israeli authorities have enforced tight restrictions on Palestinian access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem for the inaugural Friday prayers of Ramadan.
Entry has been limited to a small fraction of the usual number of worshippers from the occupied West Bank, reports Al Jazeera.
While hundreds of thousands of people typically gather at the holy site during the fasting month, Israel has capped the number of West Bank Palestinians at 10,000, requiring all attendees to hold special permits.
Under the current regulations, only children under the age of 12, men over 55, and women aged 50 and above are eligible to travel from the West Bank to Jerusalem for prayers.
From the early hours of the morning, hundreds of Palestinians queued at the Qalandiya checkpoint in hopes of reaching the mosque.
However, by mid-morning, Israeli media reported that only approximately 2,000 people had been permitted to cross, as Israeli forces remained on high military alert at checkpoints separating the West Bank from East Jerusalem.
Palestinian officials later noted that Israeli authorities claimed the daily quota had been reached, effectively barring any further entry to the compound.
‘Unprecedented’ measures
Palestinian officials and journalists have described the scale of these restrictions as “unprecedented.” In previous years, attendance for Friday prayers during Ramadan has reached up to 250,000 people, including Palestinians from the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Observers have warned that these measures are deepening the divide between occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, while simultaneously disrupting long-held social and religious traditions associated with the holy month.
The imposition of these restrictions comes amid a surge in violence across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The United Nations, alongside various human rights organisations, has documented an increase in attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians – often involving land seizures, home burnings, and shootings – frequently conducted under the protection of Israeli forces.
Data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs indicates that more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 2023, and over 10,000 individuals have been forcibly displaced.
Furthermore, international critics and Palestinian officials have hit out at a plan approved by Israel earlier this week to declare large swathes of the West Bank as “state property.”
The move, described as de facto annexation, has been condemned by more than 80 UN member states for undermining the Palestinian right to self-determination and the viability of a future sovereign state.
