A massive Israeli security presence lined the streets of Jerusalem as up to 250,000 Palestinian Muslims performed the fourth and probably final Friday prayer of Ramadan at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
\nMore than 3,200 police, border police and Shin Bet security agents were deployed on roads leading to the mosque.
\nAuthorities allowed women of all ages, men over the age of 55 and children under 12 to enter Jerusalem from the West Bank without permits to perform Friday prayers.
\nRamadan is a rare chance for many Palestinians to visit Jerusalem and pray at Al-Aqsa. For many, this was their first time in the city.
\nAhmed Khassib, 51, from Ramallah, told international media channel: \u201cI am delighted to be able to perform the fourth Friday prayer of Ramadan at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
\n\u201cI cannot obtain a permit to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque except on Fridays during Ramadan, so I wait for this opportunity throughout the year.\u201d
\nPraying at the mosque, Khasib said, \u201ccarries a message that Al-Aqsa is for Muslims.\u201d
\nDuring his Friday sermon, Sheikh Ekrimeh Sabri, the imam of Al-Aqsa Mosque, told worshippers: \u201cYou who came to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque from all parts of holy Palestine, you who have crossed the unjust military checkpoints, your march to the blessed Aqsa for the evening prayer and Taraweeh prayers is to remind the 2 billion Muslims of the world of the captive Al-Aqsa.\u201d
\nAbd Al-Salam Abu Askar, a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip who lives in Ramallah, told\u00a0news channels that inflammatory comments about Al-Aqsa by far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had made Palestinians more determined to challenge Israeli restrictions on worshipping there.
\nWhen they felt the mosque was in danger, he said, they flocked to it during Ramadan, especially on Fridays.
\n\u201cIf the military checkpoints surrounding the city of Jerusalem allowed all citizens of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to visit Al-Aqsa, the number of worshippers would exceed half a million today,\u201d Abu Askar said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A massive Israeli security presence lined the streets of Jerusalem as up to 250,000 Palestinian Muslims performed the fourth and probably final Friday prayer of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6064,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}