140,000 Palestinian Worshipers Attend Friday Night Prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque

Al-Quds, MINA – Some 140,000 Palestinian worshipers attended Friday night prayers at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Wafa reported.

An estimated 140,000 Muslim worshipers attended the Isha and Taraweeh prayers on the 16th day of the Ramadan month at the mosque compound despite the tightened restrictions and beefed-up military deployments at the holy site gates and across the Old City of Jerusalem.

This came two days after Israeli occupation forces stormed al-Aqsa mosque while nearly 20,000 worshippers were still performing the Ramadan Taraweeh night prayer and forcibly removed them from its prayer hall and surrounding yards for the second consecutive night.

On Tuesday, the occupation forces raided al-Aqsa mosque and assaulted worshippers in shocking scenes recorded on video and widely shared on social media, generating international condemnation.

The heavily-armed police officers could be seen pushing peaceful Muslim worshippers, including elderly men, off their prayer mats and forcing them to leave the site. In other scenes, the police were filmed beating worshippers with batons and rifle butts while they appeared to be lying on the floor and firing tear gas inside a darkened Al-Aqsa, while women could be heard screaming in protest.

The police brutalization of the worshippers was reminiscent to the 2021 Ramadan tensions and May violence over Israeli settler takeover of Palestinian property in Sheikh Jarrah and encroachments upon the mosque compound, as it triggered the firing of barrage of rockets from Lebanon’s south into Israel and subsequent Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon and the besieged. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)