SAFA- The General Secretariat of the League of Arab States strongly condemned the mass raid of hundreds of Jewish settlers into the Aqsa Mosque compound on Thursday, where they performed Talmudic rituals and prayers in the Mosque’s courtyards under military protection.

In a press statement, the General Secretariat condemned the settler attack as a clear violation of the Mosque’s sanctity, international law, and international resolutions.

The statement warned that such settler raids aim to change the historical and legal status of Aqsa Mosque or to impose a spiritual divide on the site.

The Jerusalem Waqf Department earlier reported that 584 settlers broke into the Aqsa Mosque compound through the Mughrabi Gate in the morning, backed by Israeli forces, and performed Talmudic rituals in the courtyards.

The General Secretariat warned of the grave implications of these continued Israeli practices, which directly undermine the established historical and legal status of Al-Aqsa Mosque and constitute a systematic attempt to entrench its temporal and spatial division. Such actions pose a serious threat to freedom of worship and to peace and security in the region.

The General Secretariat reaffirmed that Al-Aqsa Mosque, in its entirety, covering an area of 144 dunams, is an exclusive place of worship for Muslims, and that the Jerusalem Awqaf and Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs Directorate is the competent authority responsible for administering its affairs, in accordance with the established historical and legal status.

It further held Israel, as the occupying Power, fully responsible for these repeated violations and demanded it immediately halt all incursions, provocations and practices aimed at altering the identity and established historical and legal status of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and to respect international law, international humanitarian law and relevant United Nations resolutions.

The General Secretariat called on the international community, particularly the United Nations Security Council, to assume its responsibilities in bringing the escalating Israeli violations to an end, providing protection for the Palestinian people and their holy sites, and preventing continued impunity and the imposition of faits accomplis by force.

The League of Arab States reiterated its firm position that East Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Palestine, and that all Israeli measures aimed at altering the status, identity and Arab, Islamic and Christian character of the city are null and void and illegitimate, and create neither rights nor legal effect.

The League further stressed that the continued escalation at Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Islamic and Christian holy sites in occupied Jerusalem constitutes a provocation to the feelings of hundreds of millions of Arabs, Muslims and Christians, and risks inflaming the situation and undermining prospects for peace and stability in the region.