On Thursday, ahead of the annual and highly controversial ‘Flag March’ through Jerusalem’s Old City, Israeli security forces enacted sweeping restrictions that barred the vast majority of Palestinian Muslim worshippers from accessing the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, while providing heavy armed protection for large-scale incursions by ultranationalist Israeli groups into the holy site.
The entire Old City, located in Israel-occupied East Jerusalem, was placed under a near-complete lockdown to make way for the planned marches and incursions. Palestinian-owned commercial establishments across the area were forced to close their doors, and local Palestinian residents were ordered to remain confined to their homes.
In an anonymous interview with Middle East Eye, a staff member from the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf — the Jordanian-administered body that oversees Al-Aqsa Mosque under longstanding regional arrangements — noted that security barriers and entry restrictions were stricter than at any point in recent memory. From the moment of pre-dawn morning prayers, Israeli authorities implemented harsh control measures at every entry gate to the compound, one of the most sacred sites in Islam.
Israeli forces conducted invasive searches of all worshippers attempting to reach the mosque, confiscated identification documents from many, and enforced sweeping age-based bans: all Palestinian men under the age of 60 and all Palestinian women under the age of 50 were barred entry entirely. Local sources confirmed to Middle East Eye that worshippers were physically assaulted, shoved, and beaten by security personnel at multiple mosque gates. By the time pre-dawn prayers concluded, the vast majority of Palestinians had been cleared from the compound, leaving only a small contingent of Waqf staff on site.
Shortly after the clearance, large groups of ultranationalist Israelis entered the compound under full police protection. By mid-morning, at least 800 Israelis had carried out incursions into the site, with additional groups scheduled to enter throughout the day. During the incursions, multiple participants performed openly Jewish religious rituals and prayers, and raised Israeli flags across the mosque’s central courtyard.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound sits on a plateau known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif and to Israelis as the Temple Mount. For Muslims, Al-Aqsa is the third-holiest site in Islam, while Jewish tradition holds the plateau was the location of the ancient First and Second Temples. A centuries-old status quo agreement, formally recognized by the international community, designates the entire compound as an exclusively Muslim place of worship, with full administrative authority over access, prayer, and maintenance granted to the Islamic Waqf.
In recent years, however, the Israeli government has steadily eroded this long-standing arrangement. It has permitted near-daily incursions by ultranationalist settler groups and allowed public Jewish prayer on the compound, while systematically sidelining the Waqf’s governing authority. Thursday’s incursions included several high-profile Israeli political figures: Ariel Kallner, a sitting member of parliament from the ruling Likud party, and Yitzhak Wasserlauf, Israel’s current minister for peripheral development from the far-right Otzma Yehudit party led by Itamar Ben Gvir. Speaking after his entry to the compound, Wasserlauf claimed that ‘Jews no longer walk around the Temple Mount like thieves and no longer need to hide.’
The large-scale incursions come as Israel marks ‘Jerusalem Day,’ a national holiday commemorating Israel’s 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem and its subsequent annexation of the territory. Alongside the raids on Al-Aqsa, the day’s events include the polarizing Flag March, which travels through the Old City, including through Palestinian-majority neighborhoods. The march has a well-documented history of racist, anti-Muslim chants, physical assaults on Palestinian residents, and vandalism of Palestinian property.
This year’s Jerusalem Day celebrations run from sunset Thursday through nightfall Friday, an unusually timed schedule that sees the events overlap with Nakba Day — the Palestinian commemoration of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias during the establishment of the state of Israel. The overlap also falls on a Friday, the holiest day of the week for Muslim prayer, when Israeli authorities have historically suspended incursions into Al-Aqsa to allow for weekly communal prayers.
Despite this long-standing practice, a group of senior ministers and members of parliament from Israel’s ruling coalition have submitted an official appeal to the national police commissioner demanding that Israeli groups be allowed to enter the compound’s yards on Friday. In a joint letter signed by top officials including Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Energy Minister Eli Cohen, the politicians argued that ‘it is unacceptable that on the day marking the liberation of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, Jews will be completely denied access to the holiest site for the Jewish people.’
A Palestinian Jerusalem resident, speaking anonymously to Middle East Eye, expressed widespread fear among local communities that the raids will proceed on Friday, further cementing Israeli control over the contested holy site. Ir Amim, an Israeli human rights organization focused on protecting equality and accessibility in Jerusalem, has issued a strong condemnation of what it describes as growing official government backing for the Temple movement, a coalition of ultranationalist groups that organizes daily incursions into Al-Aqsa and openly calls for the destruction of the existing mosque to make way for a Jewish Third Temple.
‘Against the backdrop of the sweeping government support they now enjoy, Temple activists may in the coming days attempt to forcibly enter the complex, damage Muslim holy sites, or carry out attacks against Palestinians in and around the area,’ Ir Amim warned earlier this week. ‘When the police – who are meant to uphold public order – openly declare their support for the Temple movement, there is little left to restrain those groups from acting in such a manner.’