In press remarks, Sheikh Sabri said that the zionist occupation gangs in Jerusalem prevents Palestinian engineers, workers and the Islamic Awqaf authority from carrying out renovations at the Aqsa Mosque’s eastern area in an attempt to make it look like a neglected and abandoned place as a prelude to seizing it.

During recent days, the zionist occupation gangs allowed settlers to intensify their presence at the eastern area of the Mosque and perform rituals there and expelled Muslim worshipers from the area.

The Jerusalemite official pointed out that the Zionist occupation gangs previously tried to take over the Aqsa Mosque’s Bab al-Rahma prayer hall and turn it into a synagogue after failed attempts to impose its control over the Marwani Mosque (one of the Aqsa Mosque compound’s buildings).

He also slammed israel’s systematic banishment of Jerusalemite figures and citizens from the Aqsa Mosque and the Old City of Jerusalem, describing such practice as “an unjust measure” and “a failed, arbitrary and venomous policy.”

“No country in the world banishes people from their own places of worship except this occupation [entity], which vindicates that it an occupying power and not a sovereign authority,” Sheikh Sabri underscored.