OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Haroun Nasser Al-Din, member of Hamas’s Political Bureau and Head of its Jerusalem Affairs Office, warned on Wednesday that Israeli settler calls to fully open the Aqsa Mosque compound during the upcoming “Flag March” represent a grave escalation in the ongoing attempts to Judaize the holy site and impose full Israeli control over it.
In a statement, Nasser Al-Din said that these calls are occurring amid continued violations by Israeli forces and settlers against the Aqsa Mosque and occupied Jerusalem. He stressed the urgent need for mobilization to thwart these plans, which aim to destroy the Mosque and replace it with the so-called “Third Temple.”
He noted that extremist “Temple Mount” groups have appealed to Israel’s far-right Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, demanding that settlers be granted unrestricted access to Aqsa Mosque compound during the Flag March scheduled for 25 and 26 May. Nasser Al-Din stated that these demands are part of a broader agenda, encouraged by Ben Gvir, to storm and desecrate the holy Islamic site.
Nasser Al-Din emphasized the importance of confronting the increasingly aggressive plans of extremist settler groups and the current Israeli government to impose religious rituals rooted in Jewish mythology at the Mosque and to further entrench settlement and Judaization policies in Jerusalem.
He called on Palestinians in Occupied Jerusalem and within the occupied 1948 territories to mobilize, maintain a presence at Aqsa, and resist the ongoing assaults by the Israeli occupation and its settlers—particularly in light of continued restrictions preventing West Bank residents from accessing the Mosque and the city.
He affirmed, “Aqsa Mosque is among the most sacred Islamic sites, and our Palestinian people will not allow the occupation to implement its schemes there.” He also warned of alarming incitement by settler-linked platforms, which have openly discussed plans to bomb or demolish the Aqsa Mosque to build the so-called Temple in its place.
Nasser Al-Din urged all Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic forces, as well as the international community and relevant United Nations institutions, to treat this incitement with the utmost seriousness, calling on the Islamic nation to do everything in its power to defend, protect, and safeguard the Aqsa Mosque.
