{"id":6065,"date":"2023-04-05T22:48:06","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T22:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/?p=6065"},"modified":"2023-04-05T23:01:18","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T23:01:18","slug":"hear-from-the-palestinians-attacked-in-israels-raid-on-al-aqsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/hear-from-the-palestinians-attacked-in-israels-raid-on-al-aqsa\/","title":{"rendered":"Hear from the Palestinians attacked in Israel\u2019s raid on Al-Aqsa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Al Jazeera Staff<\/a>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city of Jerusalem is still tense in the aftermath of overnight raids by Israeli forces<\/a> on Palestinian Muslim worshippers who were in the Al-Aqsa Mosque after nighttime tarawih prayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International efforts are being made to mediate between Palestinian groups and the Israeli government to reduce tensions after the latter received a barrage of condemnations for the actions of its forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The raids<\/a>\u00a0went on into the morning, with images circulating of Israeli soldiers dragging and beating worshippers to get them out of the mosque, shortly before the compound, known as al-Haram al-Sharif to Muslims, was opened for non-Muslim visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Haram al-Sharif hosts Islam\u2019s third-holiest site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Dome of the Rock, which is believed to be where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. Jews call the compound Temple Mount and believe the Biblical Jewish temples once stood there. Although mainstream Judaism forbids prayer on the site, the compound has been a source of tensions for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A Palestinian woman sits near Israeli border policemen in the Al-Aqsa compound, on April 5, 2023 [Ammar Awad\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Al Jazeera spoke to some of the Palestinian worshippers who were inside the mosque about their experience and why removing them from the mosque during the holy month of Ramadan was especially painful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Violation of our holy places\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Part of Muslim worship is the act of \u201citikaf\u201d \u2013 when worshippers shut themselves off from the world and spend a prolonged period in prayer and contemplation. This period can be days on end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Week in the Middle East<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Many observant Muslims believe that itikaf during Ramadan is especially blessed, with Prophetic tradition saying that 10 days is the ideal length of an itikaf during the holy month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Palestinian Muslims, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is a beloved icon of their faith. For Palestinian Muslims in Jerusalem, it is also the one place where they want to worship during Ramadan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cItikaf is a part of Ramadan. I\u2019m at Al-Aqsa every day in Ramadan \u2013 and many nights,\u201d 29-year-old Amir Maragha from the Silwad neighbourhood of Jerusalem told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen there are a lot of worshippers at Al-Aqsa, the raids lessen. Some people stay in the mosque to prevent the raids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A man looks at the damage in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, on April 5, 2023 [Ammar Awad\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In a statement made after the raid, Israeli police claimed that they had been \u201cforced\u201d to enter the compound when \u201cmasked agitators\u201d armed with fireworks, sticks and stones locked themselves in the mosque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the police entered, stones were thrown at them and fireworks were fired from inside the mosque by a large group of agitators,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe police always attack with brutality to prevent people from staying in the mosque,\u201d Maragha said. \u201cThe next day, it\u2019s safe for the settlers to make their incursions into the compounds without anybody standing in their way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018People fainted, suffocated, were bleeding\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bakr Owais, a 24-year-old student at Birzeit University, was also at the mosque that night for a Ramadan itikaf and, along with the other worshippers there, was surprised when the doors were sealed with everyone inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The security forces stood on the roof of the mosque and used a loudspeaker to tell the worshippers that they had to leave the mosque or else they would be removed by force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that point, the youth present in the mosque decided to resist as they did not want their itikaf interrupted for the sake of clearing the compound for settler visits the next morning. The security forces decided to move in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey broke the windows of the mosque and started throwing stun grenades at us. There were young children, elderly men, and women stuck inside,\u201d Owais told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnother group came through a door and started firing tear gas, stun grenades and rubber-coated bullets at the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey attacked the people, beating them on the head with sticks \u2026 people fainted, people suffocated, people were bleeding. Then they started arresting us. Huge numbers of people were taken. They kept swearing at us the whole time, pushing us onto buses that took us to the police station in Atarot where we were made to lie on the floor with our hands cuffed behind us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere must have been 400, 500 detainees. They took our names, then put a sticker on us with our name and number and called us in by the number, like we were worthless,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Owais, along with every other Palestinian arrested during the raid, has been banned from entering Al-Aqsa for a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Al Jazeera Staff The city of Jerusalem is still tense in the aftermath of overnight raids by Israeli forces on Palestinian Muslim worshippers who were in the Al-Aqsa Mosque after nighttime tarawih prayers. International efforts are being made to mediate between Palestinian groups and the Israeli government to reduce tensions after the latter received a barrage of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":6066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[185,218,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestinian-affairs","category-reports-and-articles","category-172"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6068,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6065\/revisions\/6068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}