VIDEO| Thousands of Palestinians attend Al-Fajr prayer at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque

Occupied Jerusalem (QNN)- Great numbers of Palestinian worshipers attended at Friday dawn the Al-Fajr prayer at the Al-Aqsa mosque in the occupied city of Jerusalem, pledging to protect the holy site from Israeli occupation violations.

Local sources reported that thousands of Palestinian worshipers performed the Al-Fajr prayer at the mosque with the intention of supporting the “Great Fajr” campaign to pray at the holy sites.

The worshipers then gathered at the courtyards of the mosque, confirming their spiritual links to the holy site and rejecting the Israeli systematic Judaization policy.

Thousands of Palestinian worshippers perform Fajr prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied #Jerusalem, today.#FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/ekn5m495dx

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) October 7, 2022

Every Friday, thousands of Palestinians stream to the Al-Aqsa mosque, the world’s third-holiest site for Muslims. They recite the Holy Quran before performing the Al-Fajr prayer and, hours later, the Friday prayers despite the Israeli restrictions.

The “Great Fajr” campaign was launched for the first time in 2020 and started from the fourth holiest place in the Islamic world, Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque, to stand against Israeli occupation’s violations against the mosque and its attempt to Judaize it, including the repeated raids by colonial Israeli settlers.

There have been calls by Palestinian officials to Muslim worshipers to pray and stay at the Al-Aqsa mosque at all times those days amid aggressive Israeli violations committed against the mosque with the coming of the so-called Jewish holidays.

Marking the so-called Jewish New Year, which started on September 26 and ended on September 27, hundreds of colonial Israeli settlers, backed by well-armed Israeli soldiers, broke into Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, performed Talmudic rituals and listened to Talmudic explanations, provoking Palestinian worshipers. Strict restrictions were imposed by the occupation forces to facilitate the settlers’ incursion while barring Palestinian entry to the site.

On October 5, at approximately 7 am local time, well-armed Israeli occupation soldiers raided the mosque to make way for settlers to break into the holy site to mark the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

That day, Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf confirmed that hundreds of Israeli settlers broke into the mosque in groups, each group consisting of 40 settlers, under the protection of the forces who attacked the worshipers inside the mosque, raided the prayer halls, blockaded worshipers inside the al-Qibli Mosque and arrested some worshipers to empty the courtyards of its worshipers to secure the settlers’ entry.