JERUSALEM, Tuesday, September 28, 2021 (WAFA) – In a step seen as an infringement on freedom of religion, Israeli police today obstructed Muslim worshippers from Arab towns in Israel from accessing Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque for the dawn prayer and detained two of them, according to sources.

They said that the police stopped the buses transporting the Muslim worshippers from several Arab towns in Israel as they headed to Jerusalem, inspected their documents, and held them for hours delaying their arrival at the Mosque in time for the prayer.

Police also detained two worshippers, one from Um al-Fahem and the other from Akka (Acre) in the north of the country, and released them hours later after banning them from being in Jerusalem for three days, according to the two men.

Muslim leaders in the holy city have called on worshippers to head to Al-Aqsa Mosque, considered the third holiest site in Islam after Makkah and Medina in Saudi Arabia, in order to protect it against attempts by Jewish zealots and fanatics to change its status from a Muslim holy site to a Jewish one through their intensive daily incursions into the Mosque compound, but mainly during Jewish holidays.

Hundreds of Jewish fanatics took advantage of the visit hours to Mosque to enter it and perform religious rituals in violation of standing orders which ban non-Muslims from praying inside the walled compound.

K.T./M.K.