Israeli Opposition Leader Lapid Blames PM Netanyahu for Putting Extremist over al-Aqsa Mosque as 140,000 Palestinians Defiantly Worship

( Middle East Monitor ) – Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid on Friday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of causing a disaster by assigning National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir responsibility for Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Ma’an News Agency disclosed that Lapid accused Netanyahu of knowing that giving the National Security portfolio to Ben-Gvir, which made him responsible for Al-Aqsa Mosque, would lead to disaster.

“There are irresponsible people sitting in the Ministerial Council,” Lapid criticised, commenting on the ongoing tension in the occupied territories and Jerusalem.

In the last two days, Israeli occupation police raided Al-Aqsa Mosque and forcefully pushed Palestinian worshippers out to make way for Israeli settlers to desecrate it during the Jewish Passover holiday.

More than 420 worshippers were detained during the aggression on Al-Aqsa Mosque. Most were released on condition of not entering the holy site.

Following two days of violent Israeli attacks on worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, around 140,000 Muslim worshippers attended Isha and Taraweeh prayers on the 16th day of Ramadan, Wafa News Agency reported.

This came despite the tightened restrictions and amplified military deployments at the holy site gates and across the Old City of Jerusalem.

On Tuesday, Israeli occupation forces raided Al-Aqsa Mosque and assaulted worshippers. Shocking scenes of the attacks were widely shared on social media, sparking international outcry.

The heavily-armed police officers were seen pushing peaceful Muslim worshippers off their prayer mats, including elderly men, forcing them to leave the site.

READ: Al-Aqsa worshippers paying price of Arab states’ normalisation with Israel

In other scenes, police were filmed beating worshippers with batons and rifle butts while they appeared to be lying on the floor and firing tear gas inside the mosque, while women were heard screaming in protest.

The Israeli occupation claims that Muslim worshippers desecrated Al-Aqsa Mosque and, therefore, they wanted to evacuate them.

Witnesses from Jerusalem refuted the claims of the Israeli police and said they were evacuated from the holy site during the settler raids in the days of the Jewish Passover.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Two reports have been combined.