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250,000 worshipers pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque on First Jumuah of Ramadan
6-03-2017
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) – About Quarter Million Congregants converged to Alqsa Mosque on the first Friday Jumuah Prayers on JUNE 2-2017.
According to timesofisrael.com Police reinforcements were deployed to provide security around the ultra-sensitive compound which is also Judaism’s holiest site.
For Muslims Masjid al Aqsa is among the three holiest place in Islam, First Being the Kabah in Makkah and second Masjid Nabawi in Madinah.
Azzam al-Khatib who is the Islamic endowment (Awqaf) director told Ma’an News that an estimated 250,000 worshippers prayed in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, adding that the compound had been crowded since the “al-fajr” dawn prayers with worshipers from across the occupied Palestinian territory, as well as from foreign countries such as Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia and South Africa.
The Israeli police put the figure at 100,000 as reported by Daily Mail.
Azzam al-Khatib added that Israeli forces installed iron gates in some of the streets leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and flew a drone and a blimp overhead to monitor the worshipers.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that its crews provided medical care to 89 people, five of whom were transferred to the Makassed hospital after suffering from the heat and overcrowding.
Palestinian residents of the West Bank are not allowed to access occupied East Jerusalem or Israel without an Israeli-issued permits. Ramadan typically sees a slight ease of permit restrictions on Palestinians, particularly women, though the thousands who do get permits are still subjected to long waits and checkpoints and searches by armed Israeli forces.
During Ramadan, Israeli authorities only grant permits to East Jerusalem to men above the age of 40, women of all ages, and children younger than 11 years of age from the occupied West Bank.
Abdeljawad Najjar, 61, from the northern West Bank city of Nablus, was among those waiting at the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem on Friday to attend the prayers.
“It is a religious obligation to pray at Al-Aqsa, regardless of the difficulties and obstacles,” he told Times of Israel.
“It is important for us to pray at Al-Aqsa and not to forsake it, because we are afraid the Jews will take it,” Kefaya Shrideh, 40, also from Nablus said.
Israel claims Jerusalem as its united capital, while the Palestinians claim the city’s eastern sector as the capital of their future state.
With Pictures By www.maannews.com
Footnotes: Footnotes: http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=777458
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