On the first Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, Israel put severe restrictions on the entry of Palestinians to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, with tens of hundreds people waiting to get in.
Al Jazeera reported that many hundreds of Palestinians kept queueing at the Qalandiya checkpoint near Ramallah, hoping to get into the mosque compound. The Israeli authorities, however, said that on Friday, they would allow no more than 10,000 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank into Al-Aqsa, one of the holiest sites for Muslims across the world.
The Israeli authorities maintained that the entries will be allowed only through permits, restricting the number of Palestinian visitors to Al-Aqsa to just a fraction of the number who have visited the Mosque in previous years.
Israeli media, however, put the number of Palestinians who entered the mosque at just 2,000. Channel 12 of Israel said that only about 2,000 Palestinians were able to cross through the Qalandiya checkpoint towards Jerusalem by the morning, amid a state of Israeli military high alert at checkpoints.
Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh was at the Qalandiya checkpoint, and she reported that allowing just 10,000 people to pray on the first Friday of Ramadan was "just a drop in the ocean", given that "there were 3.3 million people in the occupied West Bank".
She reported that in previous years, up to 250,000 worshippers visited the holy site, "and now only a fraction of that". "Getting to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is a part of the Palestinian tradition, going on for generations, for hundreds of years," the reporter said. "Spending this day here is extremely important, a part of Palestinian heritage."
This was an attempt to break bonds within the community, Odeh said. Many this year will not be allowed to break fast inside the compound of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and that is "just one more Israeli way of severing ties between the occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West Bank".
Hundreds, meanwhile, remained stuck for most of the day at checkpoints. Late morning, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli authorities were claiming the quota on the entry to the compound from the West Bank has already been filled.
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