Amman, Oct. 2 (Petra)– Israeli settlers on Friday stormed the Bab
al-Rahma Cemetery, adjacent to the eastern wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque
compound.

According to the Jerusalem Governorate, settlers performed Jewish
religious rituals in the morning to mark what is known as the seventh
and final day of the Jewish holiday, carrying what they refer to as
the “Four Species.” The rituals were conducted outside Bab al-Rahma,
along the eastern wall of Al-Aqsa and adjacent to Muslim graves, the
Palestinian News and Information Agency (WAFA) reported.

The governorate said the rituals are part of repeated actions
witnessed in the area recently, as Jewish groups seek to establish
the vicinity of Bab al-Rahma as a site for Jewish prayer and
religious rituals by organizing recurring gatherings and prayers
there and promoting religious and historical narratives about the
site’s significance to Jews.

Some of these narratives, it added, go so far as to claim that the
site holds greater significance than the Western Wall.

The Jerusalem Governorate warned that the increasingly frequent and
organized rituals are part of attempts to create a new reality around
Al-Aqsa Mosque and turn the area adjacent to Bab al-Rahma into a
permanent site for Jewish religious rituals, which it said undermines
the Islamic identity of the site and targets the historical and legal
status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings.

The governorate noted that recent weeks have witnessed intensified
desecration of the Bab al-Rahma Cemetery by settlers in what it
described as attempts to take control of the cemetery and expand the
area in which Jewish religious rituals are performed at Islamic holy
sites.

//Petra// MF