The two-year genocide in Gaza has ramped up Israel’s ongoing plans to seize further control of Masjid Al-Aqsa, writes Ismail Patel.
No visitor to Jerusalem, can escape the enigmatic golden Dome building within Masjid Al-Aqsa in the Old City. However, Muslims attachment to Masjid Al-Aqsa goes beyond any physical and architectural marvel upon it. It is the first Qibla (direction of prayer), station in the Night journey of the Prophet Muhammad and mentioned in the Quran as blessed.
For Muslims, its symbolic significance, on the one hand nourishes the spiritual soul and turns everyday existence into a profound dialogue with the Creator. On the other hand, the site is a living monument that fosters heritage and historical meanings, anchoring both individual and collective memory. As such it provides a cultural legacy and thus it is about Muslimness and Muslim identity. To honour Masjid Al-Aqsa is a sign of the true piety of the heart and thus a form worship.
For over one thousand four hundred years, Muslims have visited, cared, protected and when required defended it with their lives.
It is during the Muslim period, that started in 637 that the over five hundred years of Jewish exile from Jerusalem was brought to an end. Again, after the crusaders expelled the Jews, Salah ad-Din after his victory invited back the Jews.
Over millenniums, Jews considered the Wailing Wall, the external side of the Western wall of Masjid Al-Aqsa, as the most sacred site, which Muslims respected. Throughout this long era there was no Jewish movement demanding Masjid Al-Aqsa be demolished.
Zionist agenda for Al-Aqsa
Subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated on the latest news and updates from around the Muslim world!
The gradual fusion of political Zionism, a racist colonialist ideology, with the idea of ‘chosen people’ converged to create an ethnic-religio supremacy. The impact of this on Palestinians has been the ongoing of the Nakba. Further, the supremacist-divine convergence has increasingly manifested in the ambition to build a Jewish Temple upon Masjid Al-Aqsa. While for most observant Jews, this idea remained largely symbolic and an aspiration deferred until the coming of the final messiah, but their voices are gradually being sidelined.
The destructive shots surfaced in the 1930s with the Brit HaBirionim organization. This gained significant momentum after Israel’s capture of Masjid Al-Aqsa in 1967, when Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the Chief Rabbi of the Israeli colonising forces, clamoured to dynamite the Dome of the Rock and other buildings upon Masjid Al-Aqsa only to be stopped by an Israeli military General.
Goren’s malicious ambitions sowed the seeds for the emergence of the Temple Mount Movement. A critical turning point was the Jewish Underground movement in the early 1980s, whose members, including Yehuda Etzion, planned to blow up the Dome of the Rock to spark a “messianic revolution”. The 1990s witnessed further acceleration, with religious Zionist rabbis, including the Yesha Rabbis Committee (a body of religious Zionist rabbis), reinterpreting halachic rulings to permit Jews to trespass upon Masjid Al-Aqsa.
The increasing influence of the Temple Mount movements’ malevolence is witnessed in the increased infringements upon the grounds of Masjid Al-Aqsa. The number of incursions grew from 4,000 in 2003 to 22,000 in 2017. These violations occur alongside Israel imposing discriminatory age and access limitations on Muslim worshippers. Further, the month of Ramadan, over the past few years, have also witnessed Israel occupation forces attacking worshippers with stun grenades and rubber bullets.
The incremental increase in the dangers to Masjid Al-Aqsa has taken a rapid escalation since Israel’s unchecked genocide in Gaza now entering third year. This has emboldened the destructive forces and the number of Jewish incursions upon Masjid Al-Aqsa is projected to reach 52,000 by the end of 2025. Increased incursions have been accompanied by tunnels dug under Masjid Al-Aqsa that Palestinians warn is threatening the structural foundations of the buildings.
Israeli control of Al-Aqsa
Israel has also changed the status quo that allowed Jews to enter Masjid Al-Aqsa as visitors to worshipping within it. Further, Israel has increased the number of hours Jews can be in Masjid Al-Aqsa from 3 to 6 per day. This demand to what the Israelis project as increased sharing of time mirrors what happened to Masjid Ibrahimi in Hebron. Where after Israel got to share 50 percent of time was followed by Isreal physically partitioning the Mosque and in 2025 taking over the full control.
Linked with building a Temple on Masjid Al-Aqsa is the expulsion of Palestinian termed Judaizing Jerusalem. Since October 2023, there isn’t a Palestinian man in Jerusalem who has not been searched, cursed or beaten.
There are increased restriction on the ability of Palestinians to build or expand homes, more of their homes destroyed, more residents having their residency rights revoked and increasing discrimination.
In August 2025, Israel announced to build 3,000 Jewish only settler homes on Palestinian land to complete its E1 plan. This will totally isolate Masjid Al-Aqsa from the wider Palestinian community in the West Bank.
Since October 2023, the Israel deadly ambition of destroying Masjid Al-Aqsa is no longer shrouded in diplomatic terms nor implemented through indirect strategies. From Moshe Lion, Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Fleiglin an Israeli MP, to ministers Smotrich, Yitzhak Wasserlauf and Ben Gavir, all are now publicly demanding the building of the Temple by destroying Masjid Al-Aqsa. Even the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has joined the chorus.
The unchecked Israeli genocide in Gaza has intoxicated the Israelis with power, thrown wind to world opinion and created an insatiable colonialist ambition. In the process the once stealthy manoeuvres have given way to open declaration of destroying Masjid Al-Aqsa and in the process not only inflaming Palestinian emotions but also undermining the heritage, identity and the piety of Muslims worldwide.
Ismail Patel is the author of “The Muslim Problem: From the British Empire to Islamophobia”. He is also Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds and the Chair of the UK based NGO Friends of Al-Aqsa.
