Palestine rejects Israeli request to roof courtyard of Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque

By Amer Solyman and Ahmed Asmar

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) – Palestine rejected on Tuesday an Israeli request to roof the courtyard of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron.

“We reject the occupation's request to roof the mosque courtyard as it harms its historical and heritage status and infringes on the exclusive Palestinian powers on the site,” Minister of Endowments and Religious Affairs Mohammad Najm said in a statement.

Najm said his ministry’s authority includes carrying out "restoration and repair works at the mosque, including its occupied section."

The minister stressed that his ministry “will not accept, in any form, any diminishing of its authority” over the mosque.

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

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee decided in July 2017 to include the Ibrahimi Mosque and the old city of Hebron on its World Heritage List.

Hebron is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinian Muslims and about 500 Jewish settlers. The latter live in a series of Jewish-only enclaves heavily guarded by Israeli troops.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank, where at least 934 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 7,000 others injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers since the start of the Gaza war on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Health Ministry.

In July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territories illegal, calling for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.