Israeli occupation prevents Palestinians from Friday prayer at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque

The Israeli occupation Friday prevented Palestinians from performing Friday prayers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, according to Director of the Hebron Awqaf Department Ghassan al-Rajabi. Al-Rajabi said that the occupation denied Palestinian worshippers access to the Ibrahimi Mosque for the third day in a row, forcing them to perform prayers at one of the checkpoints surrounding the site. 'Around a thousand Palestinians performed Friday prayers at a closed military checkpoint west of the mosque,' he added. He pointed out that dozens of Palestinians were denied entry to the mosque on Friday morning, forcing them to pray at the checkpoints surrounding it. He explained that occupation authorities have closed the mosque for four days, citing Jewish holidays as a pretext and that the closure was expected to end on Saturday evening. Al-Rajabi elaborated that the closure of the site, among other measures, is intended to "alter the Palestinian demographic around the mosque, incr ease illegal Israeli colonists' presence, and simultaneously prevent the call to prayer (Adhan) and prayers." The city of Hebron, which houses the Ibrahimi Mosque, is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinian Muslims and about 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers who live in compounds heavily guarded by Israeli troops. Israel has expelled the only international monitors protecting Hebron's Palestinians from 800 heavily guarded settlers, one of whom committed the 1994 massacre that triggered their deployment. Source: Palestine news & Information Agency - WAFA