JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities on Friday imposed sweeping entry restrictions on Palestinian worshipers, restricting them from the occupied West Bank to occupied East Jerusalem to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Hundreds of Palestinians gathered at checkpoints around Jerusalem before dawn, hoping to reach the compound for prayers on the first Friday of Ramadan, but many were turned away despite having pre-issued permits, local officials and witnesses said.
But Israeli authorities announced Friday that no more than 10,000 Palestinians would be allowed to visit one of Islam’s holiest sites from the West Bank on this day with permission, a fraction of the number who come to mark the event in previous years.
The Palestinian Authority said thousands of people remained stranded at the Qalandiya checkpoint after reaching capacity.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that by morning, only about 2,000 Palestinians had made it through the Qalandiya checkpoint on their way to Jerusalem, with Israeli forces on high alert at the checkpoint separating the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“There are 3.3 million people in the occupied West Bank…so allowing only 10,000 people to pray this First Friday or Ramadan is like a drop, and only a tiny fraction has penetrated,” Al Jazeera News Channel reported from the Qalandiya checkpoint.
“So far, we have seen up to 250,000 worshipers in that holy site, but only a fraction of that is currently expected. And that will come from the occupied West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem itself, and Palestinian-Israelis inside Israel.”
By late morning, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, citing Jerusalem Governorate, one of the 16 Palestinian governorates, that Israeli authorities claimed that slots for access to the compound from the West Bank had already been filled.
Rights groups say Israeli authorities have increased arrests and expulsion orders in occupied East Jerusalem in recent weeks, while violence, illegal settlement expansion and military raids have soared across the occupied West Bank since the Gaza war began in October 2023.
While Palestinians consider occupied East Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state, Israel considers the city its undivided capital, an ongoing conflict in which access to its holiest sites has become a flashpoint every Ramadan.
The new restrictions come amid what the Palestinian Authority, rights groups and the United Nations say is a dangerous upsurge in violence by illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, characterized by widespread use of live ammunition, direct shooting at Palestinian citizens, burning of local Palestinian homes, and land seizures.
On Wednesday, a group of Israeli settlers supported by the Israeli military opened fire on a West Bank village, killing a young Palestinian-American man and wounding four others.
Israeli settlers, often supported by the military, rampage with impunity, attacking civilians and their property.
More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank since 2023, and more than 10,000 have been forcibly displaced, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). — Agency
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