Editor TLN
March 31 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Nearly 250,000 Muslims have attended Friday prayers at the holy Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, guarded by a strong Israeli military device in the context of recent tensions in the region for the month of Ramadan.
The general director of the Jerusalem Custody Council, Sheikh Azzam al Khatib, has indicated that they have worked throughout the early morning to facilitate access to the esplanade in the face of the numerous Israeli controls, according to the WAFA news agency.
The Israeli Army, which has deployed at least 2,300 soldiers in the area, has placed metal fences at different strategic points, such as the Damascus Gate, or Saladin Street, which has led to large crowds and queues of faithful They were waiting to enter the compound.
The commissioner of the Israel Police, Kobi Shabtai, has expressed that the month of Ramadan has had a “relatively calm” start thanks to the security forces, as reported by the newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’.
The Esplanade of the Mosques -or Temple Mount for the Jews- is the religious heart of East Jerusalem and rests on one of its sides on the Wailing Wall, the last vestige of the Jewish Solomon’s Temple, for which Muslims They fear that Israel will seek to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque — Islam’s third holiest site — in order to build a Jewish Third Temple in Jerusalem.
