Ben-Gvir storms Hebron's Ibrahimi Mosque with occupiers

Extremist Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir entered the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank on Tuesday together with hundreds of occupiers, a day after he pushed into the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem during the Jewish Sukkot holiday, which began Sunday and runs through Saturday. Israel's Channel 14 aired footage of Ben-Gvir during the intrusion into the Ibrahimi Mosque. "When I arrive at the Ibrahimi Mosque, I draw energy that makes me want to sing and rejoice," Ben-Gvir, who has lived as an occupier in Hebron for years, told the channel during the visit, with hundreds of occupiers visible behind him during the interview.

Muslim worshippers barred during Sukkot

Israeli authorities announced Monday that the Ibrahimi Mosque would be shut to Muslim worshippers during Sukkot. "The closure includes a ban on prayers and the Muslim call to prayer at the mosque, ahead of occupiers taking control of it and violating its sanctity during Jewish holidays," the Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs said in a statement. The ministry called the measures "a blatant assault on the sanctity of the Ibrahimi Mosque" that infringes on freedom of worship and Muslims' right to practice their religious rituals, stressing that the mosque is "an exclusively Islamic endowment." It warned of grave consequences from continued Israeli measures and attempts to impose temporal and spatial division at the mosque.

A site divided since 1994

The Ibrahimi Mosque sits in Hebron's Old City, an area under full Israeli occupation where around 400 occupiers live under the protection of some 1,500 Israeli soldiers. Israel split the mosque in 1994, allotting 63% to Jews and 37% to Muslims, after a Jewish occupier killed 29 Palestinian worshippers in a massacre at the site. Under unilateral Israeli arrangements, the mosque is closed entirely to Muslims for 10 days each year during Jewish religious occasions and similarly closed to Jews for 10 days during Islamic religious occasions. Since Israel began its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, it has not fully opened the mosque to Muslims during their religious occasions.

Historical context

Israel was established in 1948 on Palestinian land seized by armed Zionist groups that carried out massacres and displaced at least 750,000 Palestinians. Israel later occupied the remaining Palestinian territories and continues to reject withdrawal and the establishment of a Palestinian state as stipulated in UN resolutions. The repeated incursions by a senior Israeli minister into sensitive religious sites have drawn wide condemnation and raised fears of further escalation across the occupied territories.