OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), Senior Hamas official Majed Abu Qutaish has strongly denounced the Israeli occupation police for continuing to militarize Jerusalem and for imposing further restrictions on Palestinians’ access to the Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
In a statement on Saturday, Abu Qutaish accused the Israeli police of flagrantly violating Palestinians’ freedom of worship and undermining their religious and historical presence in the holy city.
Abu Qutaish emphasized that the latest Israeli measures against Palestinian worshipers in Jerusalem represent a “deliberate policy aimed at controlling religious life and enforcing a coercive reality that denies Jerusalemites the right to practice their rituals.”
The Hamas official called on Palestinians from all spectra to intensify their presence in Jerusalem and defend their right to worship.
On Saturday, Israeli police forces turned Occupied Jerusalem, particularly the Bab al-Amud area and the Old City, into a military zone, as Christians started observing “Holy Saturday” at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Police officers set up checkpoints on roads leading to the church, obstructed worshipers’ access, checked young men’s IDs, and barred many people from entering the holy site.
They also imposed wide restrictions on movement in the Old City and around Jerusalem, while the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate called for participation in the rituals inside the church.
This followed a period during which both the Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher were closed by the Israeli police for nearly 40 days, with prayers suspended amid large-scale military and security restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied city.
