How Israel’s Siege of Al Aqsa Exposes a Decades-long Systematic Assault on the Holy Site

For generations, Masjid Al Aqsa has stood not only as a place of prayer but as the north star of the Palestinian liberation struggle. Today, it stands empty, silenced by Israeli military occupation for eighteen consecutive days during the holiest month of the year.

And now, it has been confirmed that this closure will extend through Eid al-Fitr and beyond, denying millions of Palestinians and Muslims the ability to gather, pray, and celebrate one of the most sacred holidays in Islam at one of its holiest sites. What should be a time of communal prayer, joy, and spiritual renewal has instead been transformed into a moment of enforced absence and collective deprivation. Entire families who, for generations, have marked Eid within the walls of Al Aqsa are now being deliberately shut out.

This is one of the most blatant phases of a full-frontal, decades-long war on Islam by the apartheid state. The Israeli government has been engaged in a systematic campaign to erase identifiable Islamic religious markers from Jerusalem for decades. By shutting down and limiting access to Al Aqsa during Ramadan, blocking the Adhan (the Muslim call to prayer), desecrating Muslim cemeteries, engaging in ethnic cleansing of native Palestinian Muslims from Jerusalem, and amplifying calls from cabinet ministers and settlers to replace the mosque with a temple, Israel is sending an unmistakable message: Islam is not welcome in the Holy City.

And this assault is not confined to Muslims alone. Reports of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre being shut down and access restricted underscore the suppression of religious life in Jerusalem that impacts Palestinian Christians as well.

This reality is compounded by the fact that Israel’s control over East Jerusalem, including the Old City where Al Aqsa stands, is recognized under international law as an occupation - not sovereignty. As an occupying power, it has no legal right to assert permanent control over the territory or alter its character, yet what we are witnessing are deliberate, long-term changes aimed at entrenching dominance and reshaping the city’s identity.

For over three decades, Israeli policy, supported by state institutions, the judiciary, and political movements, has worked to accelerate what started in 1967. The goal is the eventual division or destruction of the Al Aqsa compound to pave the way for the so-called "Third Temple" and to usher in an era of Jewish supremacy in Jerusalem and its surroundings.

If the world remains silent while Al Aqsa is emptied, while the Adhan is silenced, while the government and its settlers plot the mosque’s destruction, we become complicit in the erasure of Islam from Jerusalem.

Now, more than ever, people of all faiths who believe in freedom of religion and peaceful coexistence must stand together against those promoting hatred and division.