Around 1,731 settlers entered the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on the morning of Monday 28 September 2026, under Israeli police protection. They performed Jewish Talmudic prayers and rituals, alongside singing and dancing, in a move that analysts and Palestinian officials warned was intended to entrench a new religious and political reality inside the mosque.
Ibrahimi Mosque closed as restrictions tightened in Jerusalem
The incursion coincided with the closure of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron to Palestinians until Wednesday evening, citing Jewish holidays. The Jerusalem Governorate said Israeli authorities had closed junctions and roads around the Old City and leading to Al-Aqsa Mosque to secure settlers’ movement during the Jewish holidays.
The measures came amid continuing restrictions on access to the mosque for Palestinians living around Al-Aqsa, according to analysts monitoring the developments and their political and religious repercussions. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir took part in the incursion on Monday morning and said: “We are the owners of the place in Al-Aqsa and in the prisons, and we have turned the prisoners’ lives into hell.” He added: “The people of Israel are on the path to absolute victory, and today we pray on the Temple Mount, which is the most important place for the Jewish people.”
Religious rituals inside Al-Aqsa raise fears of a division
Lawyer and settlement affairs researcher Alaa Mahajneh said the worrying development in the new incursions was the performance of Jewish Talmudic rituals inside the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, explaining that some Jewish religious movements had not previously allowed this.
He said the incursions formed part of a plan to Judaise holy sites, turning a division of access by time and space into an imposed daily reality. Israeli affairs expert Muhannad Mustafa said the greatest danger lay in entrenching a new reality inside the mosque that would give Jewish prayer legal and political cover.
He said this could pave the way for a project to build what is known as Solomon’s Temple, which holds particular sanctity in Jewish belief, adding that the possibility could no longer be ruled out amid the acceleration of current activities. Mustafa said extremist organisations advocating the construction of the temple had moved over the past two decades from the margins of political discourse to practical steps and had gained broad government and financial support.
He added that Israel’s Education Ministry had begun organising student trips to view models depicting the alleged temple in place of Al-Aqsa Mosque, indicating that the idea had reached official and educational institutions.
Access restrictions threaten Palestinian presence around Al-Aqsa
According to analysts’ assessments, these activities are proceeding alongside restrictions on Palestinians living around Al-Aqsa and preventing them from accessing it. They warned that continued restrictions could gradually drive residents towards despair and forced migration, emptying the city of its people and changing its identity and demographic reality.
Israeli affairs expert Adel Shadid said the “Temple groups” were following a gradual plan that began with individual incursions before moving to group incursions and the organisation of entry times, religious dress, forms of prayer and prostration, as well as the bringing in of plants.
According to Shadid, the final stages sought by these groups involved demolishing Al-Aqsa Mosque and building the temple in its place. Shadid noted a division among religious Zionist factions over entering Al-Aqsa Mosque.
He explained that leaders including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich refrained from entering in adherence to an official rabbinical ruling that prohibits entry before the Messiah appears and the location of the temple is determined. Meanwhile, the “Temple groups”, represented by Ben-Gvir and comprising around 43 other organisations, are pushing to accelerate the steps and gradually impose new realities inside the mosque.
Salah al-Khawaja, director of the office of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission in the central West Bank, linked the developments at Al-Aqsa to the precedent previously imposed at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. He said the 1994 massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein had been exploited to impose a division of access by time and space at the mosque, warning that the same scenario could be repeated at Al-Aqsa Mosque as a prelude to taking full control of it.
Palestinian warnings over repeating the Ibrahimi Mosque scenario
In a statement issued on Monday, the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs warned against the continuation of Israeli measures and attempts to impose a division of access to Al-Aqsa Mosque by time and space. It said the closure of the Ibrahimi Mosque included preventing prayer and the raising of the call to prayer, considering the measure a prelude to settlers taking control of it and opening it to them during the Jewish holidays.
The ministry described the practices as “a flagrant assault on the sanctity of the Ibrahimi Mosque and an infringement on freedom of worship”, stressing that the mosque was an exclusively Islamic endowment. The mosque will remain closed to Palestinians until Wednesday evening, alongside the security measures and restrictions imposed in Jerusalem and on roads around the Old City.
Mahajneh said settler groups were calling for Al-Aqsa Mosque to be demolished or burned, and for the presence of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem to be ended. He said the demands sought to eliminate the city’s original identity and impose an exclusively Jewish identity on it, as part of a process that went beyond regulating entry or allocating prayer times to completely changing the existing situation.
Al-Khawaja referred to what is known as the “Decisive Plan”, which he said Smotrich and Ben-Gvir had adopted with the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to his account, the plan treats the West Bank as the land of “Judea and Samaria” and seeks to eliminate any Palestinian political entity there, linking the measures in Jerusalem to a broader policy in the West Bank.
Al-Khawaja added that, in his assessment, the steps to impose the new reality had official backing from the Israeli government and the settlement establishment, and sought to push Palestinians living around Al-Aqsa Mosque towards mass displacement. He described the targeting as systematic and organised, originating at the highest political levels rather than being isolated initiatives carried out by religious groups or individuals.
Shadid said shifts within Israeli society and its growing tilt towards the far right had given these policies greater scope. He said Netanyahu’s silence over Ben-Gvir’s activities was no longer merely a political manoeuvre, but reflected tacit acceptance and support for imposing the measures as an irreversible fait accompli.
Mahajneh called for the international legal, political and diplomatic confrontation to move from verbal statements to a strategic plan based on international resolutions and judicial rulings affirming that East Jerusalem is under Israeli control. He called for working with international powers to impose sanctions on Israel to halt the measures and violations targeting Al-Aqsa Mosque and the city.
He added that these practices were boosting the popularity of Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party and serving its political interests, stressing that they had ideological dimensions and practical plans to change the existing situation and accelerate steps towards building the alleged temple.
He also criticised what he described as Arab and international impotence and silence, saying Israeli governments and the opposition were no longer willing or able to curb these activities. The new group incursions, accompanied by prayers and rituals in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa and the closure of surrounding roads, come as settlement expansion accelerates in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Analysts believe the convergence of the two tracks reflects an effort to impose gradual changes on the ground involving holy sites, the Palestinian population’s presence and the city’s political status.
