AL-KHALIL (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Israeli occupation forces (IOF) stormed on Friday evening the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Al-Khalil, south of the West Bank, expelled the Islamic Endowments Department employees and prevented call to Maghrib (sunset) prayer.
Ghassan Al-Rajabi, the director-general of the Al-Khalil Waqf Department, said that the IOF raided the Ibrahimi Mosque, forcing employees and worshipers to leave and prohibiting them from performing the Maghrib prayer.
“The soldiers forced worshipers outside the mosque to likely secure the incursion of a senior official in the Israeli occupation army who stormed the mosque and toured the holy site and its internal courtyards,” Al-Rajabi added.
“The ban remained in effect until the evening prayer time, after which it was opened to worshipers,” he elaborated.
Following the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre in February 1994, the Ibrahimi Mosque was divided temporally and spatially by Israeli occupation authorities, prohibiting Israeli soldiers and settlers from entering certain parts of the mosque on Fridays.
