RAMALLAH, Monday, April 18, 2022 (WAFA) – News about the Israeli occuapation forces' raid into Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, which left many injuries among the Palestinian worshipers, hit the front pages of the three Arabic Palestinian dailies on Monday.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida, al-Ayyam and al-Quds said that dozens of Muslim worshipers were arrested or hurt on Sunday early morning as Israeli occupation forces embarked on yet a fresh raid on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem.
The dailies said that the Israeli forces chased the worshipers and fired stun grenades and teargas randomly to empty the holy site of its Muslim worshipers in order to secure the entry of Israeli Jewish settlers wishing to celebrate Passover inside the courtyards of the mosque. Following the raid, groups of Jewish settlers entered the holy site in the aftermath of the attack and performed provocative tours and Talmudic rituals, while Palestinians who were forced out of the holy site tried to block the alleys used by the settlers in their way to the holy site.
The attacking forces chased men present at the compound towards Masjid al-Qibli, on the south region of the compound, and locked them down there, while women present at the holy site were pushed into the Dome of the Rock and locked down there by the attacking forces. Hundreds of worshipers were even pushed out of the compound under brutal Israeli force, which including beating worshipers with batons by the Israeli police and terrorizing others using stun grenades.
According to the papers, President Mahmoud Abbas discussed during a telephone call with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the latest developments and the dangerous Israeli aggression against the Palestinian territories, particularly Jerusalem.
President Abbas cautioned against the seriousness of the repeated attacks on al-Aqsa mosque and desecration of the holy month of Ramadan, which he stressed cannot be tolerated.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, said that Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's remarks are utterly rejected, and are an attempt to legitimize the temporal and spatial division of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, describing the Israeli raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque as "a dangerous escalation, the repercussions of which are to be borne by the Israeli government alone," as reported in al-Hayat al-Jadida and al-al-Quds.
The dailies reported that King of Jordan, Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, affirmed the need for Israel to respect the historical and legal status quo at al-Aqsa mosque and to stop all illegal and provocative measures that violate that status and push towards further deterioration.
During a virtual meeting that was held to discuss the latest developments in Jerusalem, King Abdallah II ordered the Jordanian government to continue its regional and international contacts and efforts to stop the escalatory Israeli steps and to develop a pressing and influential international position to achieve this.
al-Quds said that an Israeli settler Sunday evening ran over a 9-year-old Palestinian child in the town of Taqou to the east of Bethlehem.
Israeli forces assaulted and injured a number of Palestinian students in the town, said the papers.
K.T.
