Israel shuts Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque for Jewish holiday

By Aysar Alais

JERUSALEM (AA) – Israel shut the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron to Muslim worshippers on Sunday to allow illegal settlers to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

“The site will remain closed until Tuesday,” Ghassan al-Rajabi, the General-Director of Palestinian Endowments in Hebron, told Anadolu.

He called the mosque’s closure “part of the temporal and spatial division” of the site by Israel.

Rajabi said illegal Israeli settlers permanently occupy more than two-thirds of the mosque complex to hold their religious rituals.

“This is an attempt to impose a new reality that allows settlers to be present there permanently, while stripping Muslims of their religious rights,” he added.

The Ibrahimi Mosque is located in the old city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, which is under Israeli control. About 400 illegal settlers live there, guarded by around 1,500 Israeli soldiers.

Revered by both Muslims and Jews, Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque complex is believed to be the burial site of the prophets Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

After the 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinian worshippers inside the mosque by a Jewish extremist settler, Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli authorities divided the mosque complex between Muslim and Jewish worshippers.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala