News - Middle East: Israeli forces have brutally assaulted Muslim worshipers at one of the main entrances to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied Old City of al-Quds.

Citing local sources, WAFA news agency reported that the occupation soldiers beat up three worshipers, including an elderly man and an elderly woman, near Bab as-Silsila (the Chain Gate) on Sunday morning.

The violence came after the trio protested peacefully against an Israeli settler, who blew a horn at the entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the report added.

Earlier in the day, Israeli occupation troops intensified their presence around the al-Aqsa Mosque complex, restricting the access of Muslim worshipers to the sacred site and preventing the entry of Palestinian citizens.

They also allowed scores of Israeli settlers to enter the compound in separate groups.

The Jordan-Run Islamic Waqf Department, which is in charge of al-Aqsa Mosque affairs, said in a statement that Israeli forces had permitted the provocative settler incursion.

The regime soldiers also assaulted Muslim worshipers and tried to forcibly evacuate them from the al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard, it noted.

Israeli settler incursions into al-Aqsa Mosque and violence against Palestinians have been on the rise since the far-right extremist cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office last December.

This is while only Muslims are allowed to pray in the al-Aqsa Mosque complex under a status quo arrangement originally reached more than a century ago. Non-Muslim visitors are allowed visits at certain times and only to certain areas.

Hamas: Palestinians will not leave al-Aqsa alone

Meanwhile, the Hamas resistance movement said that the Palestinians have kept up their presence at the al-Aqsa and countered settler violations, vowing that they will never leave the mosque alone.

Mohammad Hamadeh, the spokesman for the Hamas branch in occupied al-Quds, emphasized that the break-ins into the al-Aqsa are a continuation of the occupiers’ acts of aggression.   

He also stressed that the Palestinian resistance would go on until the decline and elimination of the usurping regime.

“The Palestinian nation remains united to defend the al-Aqsa Mosque and confront the incursions by the occupiers,” Hamadeh added. “The Zionist enemy will never be able to change the existing equation.”

Source: Press TV