Iran urges for global response to Israeli minister’s provocation at al-Aqsa Mosque

On Sunday, Israel’s far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was escorted by occupation troops, stormed al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site, in al-Quds’ Old City.

“Such audacious and provocative moves are another aspect of the widespread and continuous crimes of the apartheid Zionist regime against the Palestinian nation, as well as the religious and Islamic sanctities of this land,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani said on Monday.

“They require an effective, swift and deterrent reaction from the Muslim world and the international community,” he added.

Kan’ani made clear that Holy al-Quds is Palestine’s unified and eternal capital and it will remain so, and the Israeli regime’s successive attacks against this city and its Islamic sanctuaries will not change its reality and historical status quo.
During his incursion into the al-Aqsa Mosque complex on Sunday morning, Ben-Gvir claimed that the Israeli regime was “in charge here,” drawing a wave of condemnations.

Israeli media said the minister had not coordinated his visit with the Jordanian Waqf, the body that oversees the site.

Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said “Ben-Gvir’s incursion at an early hour, like thieves, into the al-Aqsa Mosque courtyards will not change the reality and will not impose Israeli sovereignty over it.”

The Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement said on its Telegram channel that Israel would “bear responsibility for the barbaric incursions of its ministers and herds of settlers.”

Back in January, Ben Gvir paid a similar provocative visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, sparking furious condemnations from the Arab world.

Only Muslims are allowed to pray in the al-Aqsa Mosque compound under a status quo arrangement originally reached more than a century ago. Non-Muslim visitors are allowed visits at certain times and only to certain areas.