Palestine’s Shehab news agency said the settlers entered the courtyards of the holy site through the Moroccan Gate, also known as the Mughrabi Gate, and made a provocative tour of the premises on Sunday.
The regime had since morning deployed soldiers inside and around the mosque to secure the intrusion.
The Islamic Endowment Department in al-Quds was cited by Palestine’s Safa News Agency as saying that 173 settlers provocatively performed rituals and Talmudic prayers at Bab al-Rahma (Gate of Mercy) area, in violation of the site’s status quo.
Israeli forces prevented Palestinian worshipers from entering the mosque.
Israeli settler incursions into al-Aqsa Mosque and violence against Palestinians have been on the rise since the cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office last December.
Such mass settler break-ins almost always take place at the behest of Tel Aviv-backed temple groups and under the auspices of the Israeli police in al-Quds, leading to daily confrontations with Palestinians at the mosque, with many injured, arrested and killed.
Non-Muslim worship at the compound is prohibited according to an agreement between Israel and Jordan following the regime’s seizure of East al-Quds in 1967.
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