Hebron, MINA – Israel has once again closed the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, West Bank, to Muslim worshippers in order to allow illegal settlers to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot on Sunday.
“The site will remain closed until Tuesday,” said Ghassan al-Rajabi, Director General of the Palestinian Waqf in Hebron, to Anadolu Agency.
He characterized the closure as “part of Israel’s temporal and spatial division.”
Rajabi noted that illegal Israeli settlers have permanently occupied more than two-thirds of the mosque complex to conduct their religious rituals.
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“This is an attempt to impose a new reality that allows settlers to be there permanently while depriving Muslims of their religious rights,” he added.
The Ibrahimi Mosque is located in the old city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, which is under Israeli control. About 400 illegal settlers live there, protected by around 1,500 Israeli soldiers.
The Ibrahimi Mosque complex, revered by both Muslims and Jews, is believed to be the burial site of the prophets Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Following the massacre of 29 Palestinian worshippers inside the mosque in 1994 by extremist settler Baruch Goldstein, Israeli authorities divided the mosque complex between Muslim and Jewish worshippers. (T/RE1/P2)
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