Stifling restrictions for Al-Aqsa Mosque worshippers

On the third Friday of Ramadan, the Israeli authorities maintained restrictions on Palestinian access to Jerusalem to attend mid-day prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. At least 3,000 police have been deployed every day during the holy month at checkpoints in and surrounding the city to control Palestinian residents and West Bankers seeking to visit the city and their religious sites.

While there were no sweeping restrictions on Palestinians from East Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel, police checking identity papers barred selected individuals from attending services in Al-Aqsa. Israeli police said the authorities had issued permits for 10,000 Palestinians from the West Bank but did not reveal the number who were actually allowed to reach Jerusalem and the mosque compound. Israeli troops manning checkpoints at the entry to Jerusalem turned away dozens of Palestinians from the West Bank whose phones and emails have been monitored by Israeli domestic intelligence.

They have been accused of “incitement” against Israel for criticising its policies or expressing empathy for Gazans displaced, made homeless, killed and wounded in Israel's nearly 18-month war on the coastal strip.

On March 6th, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tightened already strict limits on Palestinian Jerusalemites and West Bankers to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque during this period. Only men over the age of 55, women over 50, and children under 12 are permitted to enter the mosque although Israel is required to grant freedom of religion for occupied Palestinian Muslims and Christians.

Meanwhile scores of Israeli activists accompanied by soldiers and police are allowed to enter Al-Haram Al-Sharif, the mosque compound where the splendid Dome of the Rock sanctuary is also located.

Around 100 worshippers who were denied access to Al-Aqsa gathered at Lion's Gate below the mosque compound to perform the noon prayer. Once the service was over, their entry into the Old City was blocked by Israeli troops.

Israel also excluded from Al-Aqsa hundreds of Palestinian freed under the Gaza ceasefire and captive-prisoner exchange.

Al-Aqsa is the world's third-holiest site for Muslims after Makkah and Medina while Jews say two ancient Jewish temples were built on this location, the second being destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD during a Jewish revolt. Israel captured and occupied the mosque compound in 1967 — which is administered by Jordan – and subsequently annexed the city in 1980.

Although Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital during his first term in office, no other countries have taken this step as the status of the city – along with the fate of Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlers and natural resources – was meant to be decided by negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. But talks ended in April 2014 and have not resumed. Since then, Netanyahu has been prime minister for almost the entire time.

Last July, the International Court of Justice declared that Israel’s 58-year occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and demanded the evacuation of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel has responded by stepping up Israeli settlement expansion and clamped down on Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Since the beginning of the year, the Israel army and settlers have carried out raids targeting armed groups in refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm, and Tubas in the northern West Bank. The onslaught was stepped up on January 21st, two days after the ceasefire in Gaza began and has continued after the ceasefire was voided by Israel which is now fighting on two Palestinian fronts as well as occupying territory and carrying out strikes in Lebanon and Syria.

In the West Bank, more than 40,100 Palestinians have been driven from their homes. Jenin refugee camp, a longterm hotbed of Palestinian resistance, has been destroyed for a second time. The first was in 2002. Humanitarian agencies argue this is the largest displacement of Palestinians since 1967 when the Israelis drove 250,000 from their homes. "This is unprecedented. When you add... the destruction of infrastructure, we’re reaching a point where the camps are becoming uninhabitable,” said Roland Friedrich, director of West Bank affairs for UNRWA, the UN agency established to provide for most of the 755,000 Palestinians who became refugees during Israel's 1948 war of establishment.

It is significant that Israel’s West Bank operation was dubbed "Iron Wall," using the strategy proposed by right-wing Zionist propagandist Vladimir Jabotinsky in 1923. Jabotinsky wrote that since Palestinians would never agree to a Jewish majority in their homeland, "Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population [Britain or the US] – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach."

He founded the "Revisionist movement" which favoured the use of force to establish the Jewish state and rejected territorial compromise. His views influenced the Zionist movement as a whole and were adopted by the ruling Likud Bloc.

Netanyahu has a close connection with Jabotinsky as his father subscribed to his ideas and served briefly as his secretary when residing in the US. Netanyahu opposed the 1993-1994 Oslo peace process as he argued that territorial compromise would lead to conflict and that Israel and the Jewish people had to depend on force to survive. In July 2023, Netanyahu declared, "One hundred years after the 'iron wall' was stamped in Jabotinsky's writings we are continuing to successfully implement (his) principles."