News - Middle East: The Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf (Endowments) has vehemently condemned the Israeli regime’s incursion into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied Old City of al-Quds.

The ministry, which is responsible for managing Islamic religious affairs and Islamic charitable endowments, issued a report on Sunday, saying that there were 256 incidents of Israeli settler incursions into the holy site in 2024.

Illegal settlers, it said, have also violated other Islamic and Christian religious sites in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The report said Tel Aviv has allowed settler groups “to storm and defile” the holy sites. During the incursions, the settlers provocatively carried out rituals in defiance of the sanctity of the world's third-holiest site for Muslims.

The Jewish visits to the mosque are permitted but as part of a decades-old agreement between Jordan – the custodian of Islamic and Christian sites in al-Quds – and Israel in the wake of Israel’s occupation of East al-Quds in 1967, non-Muslim worship at the compound is prohibited.

In the latest incident, dozens of illegal settlers, escorted by military forces, broke into the compound and provocatively performed rituals and Talmudic prayers in the mosque’s courtyards on Thursday.

The ministry’s report also detailed Israel’s violations against Islamic and Christian religious sites in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the last year.

The regime’s forces have destroyed 815 mosques and partially damaged 151 others.

Press TV