Around 250,000 Palestinian worshippers performed Friday prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque despite the Israeli obstacles and military checkpoints impeding their arrival at the holy Islamic site.
The Department of Islamic Endowment in Jerusalem said the Israeli attempts failed to hinder the arrival of Palestinian worshippers to Al-Aqsa Mosque, noting that worshippers arrive in droves.
According to Wafa News Agency, the Israeli occupation placed many restrictions on the entry of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Israel to Jerusalem.
It stated that only people above the age of 55 and below 12 were allowed entry into Jerusalem through the Israeli checkpoints separating the holy city from the occupied West Bank.
READ: Israel continues to restrict Palestinian access to Al-Aqsa
Temporary Israeli checkpoints were also set up at the entrances to the Old City of Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa Mosque is located, to further tighten restrictions on the entry of Palestinian Muslim worshippers into the Islamic compound.
Other Palestinians who were denied entry into the city prayed at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank in protest after they were blocked from entering the holy city.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move that was never recognised by the international community.
Tensions have been rising across the occupied West Bank in recent months amid repeated Israeli military raids into Palestinian cities and towns, resulting in the loss of 91 Palestinian lives since the beginning of the year.
Meanwhile, extremist Israeli settler groups have been mobilising to take sacrificial animals to the yards of Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday to slaughter during next week’s Passover holiday, which starts on 5 April and coincides with the third week of Ramadan.
It is expected to trigger a massive wave of violence as Muslims will not bear the Israeli settler desecration of their third holiest place on earth.
OPINION: What right do they have to storm Al-Aqsa?
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