More than a hundred Jewish settlers guarded by Israeli military police broke into the Masjid Al-Aqsa compound to mark Israel’s “Independence Day”.
At least 140 Jewish settlers entered the Al Aqsa compound on Thursday 9 May via the Moroccan Gate, which leads to the Western Wall plaza inside the Old City of Jerusalem, Quds News reported.
Israeli police prevented Palestinians from entering Masjid Al Aqsa while illegal settlers were touring the site.
The transgression occurred on Israel’s “Independence Day”, which fell this year on Wednesday 8 May to the evening of Thursday 9 May.
The event which is known as “Nakba Day” (meaning “catastrophe”) to Arabs and Muslims generally, marked the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians before and during the founding of the illegal Zionist entity of Israel in 1947-48 every year on 15 May.
The provocative settler “tour” coincided this year with the fourth day of Ramadan, when thousands of Palestinian Muslims from Jerusalem, the rest of the West Bank, and inside Israel Masjid Al Aqsa to pray and break their fasts.
On Thursday, under the banner “Their Independence Day is our Nakba Day”, thousands of Palestinian Muslims from inside Israel marched to Khubbayza, a decimated and depopulated Palestinian village.
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Located in the area of Haifa, Khubbayza was destroyed by Israeli para-military terrorist forces in 1948 as part of “Plan Dalet”, the state-sanctioned plan to forcibly evacuate Palestinians out of the newfound Israeli “state”.
Occupying Israeli forces also attacked worshippers leaving Masjid Al-Aqsa through the Damascus Gate on Wednesday 8 May after tharawi prayers, where they were filmed assaulting Palestinians in the area before firing stun grenades and tear gas to disperse the peaceful crowds.
There were no reported injuries.