In press remarks, Sheikh Sabri condemned the mass settler break-ins at the Aqsa Mosque on Sunday morning as “aggression against the holy site and the Islamic sacred days.”

He urged the Palestinian masses to march en masse to the Aqsa Mosque to defend it, calling on the occupation state to learn lessons from the previous confrontation.

Sheikh Ekrima Sabri

In a related context, the Islamic Awqaf Administration said that more than 500 settlers escorted by police forces entered the Aqsa Mosque in the early morning hours of Sunday through al-Maghariba Gate and desecrated its courtyards.

Eyewitnesses also said that hordes of settlers tried to storm the Aqsa Mosque through other gates in the Islamic neighborhood and as-Sa’diya neighborhood in the Old City, but Palestinian citizens scuffled with them before police forces intervened to protect the settlers and escort them away.

Meanwhile, the zionist police blocked all the entrances to the Aqsa Mosque and prevented Muslim worshipers from entering it.

Police forces also attacked dozens of worshipers at the Aqsa Mosque, arrested some of them and forcibly expelled many of them from its buildings and courtyards.