By Abdel Raouf Arnaout
JERUSALEM (AA) – Scores of Jewish settlers forced their way into East Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque compound on Monday as part of celebrations of the eight-day Hanukkah holiday, according to a Palestinian official.
“Around 80 settlers stormed the compound under the protection of Israeli police,” Firas al-Dibs, a Palestinian official with Jerusalem’s Religious Endowments Authority (which oversees the city's Muslim and Christian holy sites), said in a statement.
He said hardline member of Knesset (Israel’s parliament) Yehuda Glick was among settlers who toured the site.
For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world's third holiest site. Jews, for their part, refer to the area as the “Temple Mount, ” claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, in which the Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Middle East War. It formally annexed the entire city in 1980, claiming it as its capital in a move never recognized by the international community.
In late 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had banned government ministers and MPs from entering the Al-Aqsa compound in an effort to calm tensions that had erupted across the Israeli-occupied West Bank following repeated incursions by Jewish settlers into the site.
But in June, Netanyahu lifted the ban, allowing members of the Knesset to visit the flashpoint site.
