Israeli settlers stormed the courtyards of al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday, under the protection of Israeli occupation forces.

The extremists swarmed one of Islam's most blessed sanctities, amid a siege imposed on the mosque by occupation forces, who have tightened measures and restricted the entry of worshippers to the site for the 100th consecutive day.

Eyewitnesses reported that dozens of settlers stormed the courtyards of the Mosque through the Moroccan Gate, located at the western wall of the religious site. The settlers performed provocative rituals desecrating the holy site.

Israeli occupation forces were deployed at the entrances to the Old City in occupied al-Quds and the gates leading into al-Aqsa Mosque, preventing Palestinians from entering the site, which severely minimized the number of worshippers in and around the site.

Some worshippers who were denied entry were also assaulted by occupation forces, joining others to pray in the nearby Wadi al-Joz neighborhood in occupied al-Quds.

The holy site faces near-daily incursions by settlers, in what has become a systematic effort by Israeli occupation authorities to spatiotemporally divide the mosque. Essentially this means that occupation forces seek to restrict the entry of Muslims to certain areas of the site at different times of the day, in order to provide encroaching extremists with safe passage. 

To enforce this policy, Israeli authorities have restricted the age of worshippers permitted to enter, allowing only elderly individuals to access the site. Moreover, occupation forces have installed barbed wire and barriers at al-Aqsa Mosque's gates and nearby roads, maintaining a large force on site.

Furthermore, Israeli authorities renewed a decision to prevent the governor of al-Quds, Adnan Ghaith, from traveling through the cities of the occupied West Bank. Al-Quds Governorate, in a brief statement, revealed that Governor Ghaith has been under house arrest in the town of Silwan south of al-Aqsa Mosque for more than a year and a half. It clarified that four Israeli military orders have been issued against him since he assumed his duties as the governor of occupied al-Quds five years ago.

The desecration of al-Aqsa Mosque and the systematic expansionism in the occupied West Bank are foundational elements of the racist Israeli policies. These policies played a crucial role in provoking the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza to initiate an unprecedented attack on the Gaza Envelope on October 7. Despite numerous warnings from leaders of the Palestinian Resistance, Israeli authorities persistently ignored these alerts, violated one of Islam's holiest sites, and attacked Muslim worshippers; actions that persist to this day.

Read more: Palestine's MFA: IOF trying to seize control of Al-Aqsa