Over 100,000 Palestinians attend Eid prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque following Israeli storming

Over 100,000 Palestinians attended Eid Al-Adha prayers at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday morning, the city's Islamic Waqf has said.
 

Muslim worshippers from across Jerusalem headed toward the mosque early Tuesday morning, the Anadolu news agency reported.

The mosque's compound has been subjected to assaults by far-right Israelis in the days before the Muslim festival, which began on Tuesday.
 

Israeli security forces violently cleared the holy site of Palestinian worshippers on Sunday as over a thousand settlers and far-right activists stormed the compound on Sunday and Monday.

In his Eid sermon, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, the imam of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and head of Jerusalem’s Supreme Islamic Authority, said: "We have been afflicted in these blessed days by violations of the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Its grounds have been desecrated by settlers yesterday and the day before."
 

Sabri condemned recent statements by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett saying that Jews, as well as Muslims, would be permitted to pray on the mosque's grounds.
 

On Monday, Bennett appeared to walk back the statement, saying that Jews would only be permitted to "visit" the site but not pray there, adding there was "no change in the status quo".

Sabri said that Bennett "had tried to show his strength and avoid looking weak and powerless at the expense of the blessed Aqsa Mosque".