“The Temple Mount Is For Jews”: Ben-Gvir’s Settler Raid On Al-Aqsa Signals Dangerous New Phase In Judaization Of Jerusalem.

Israeli minister incites religious war as 2,500 settlers storm Al-Aqsa under police escort; Palestinians barred, Waqf warns of irreversible red lines crossed.

Occupied East Jerusalem – In what experts and officials describe as a dangerous incitement to religious conflict, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir led thousands of Jewish settlers in a mass storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday, under the direct protection of Israeli occupation forces. The move, coinciding with what far-right religious nationalists mark as the anniversary of the “Temple’s destruction”, has triggered widespread outrage, with Palestinian officials, analysts, and religious authorities warning of a looming religious war.

“This is not just a provocation, it’s a calculated campaign to ignite a religious conflict in the heart of Jerusalem,” said Sheikh Omar Kiswani, director of Al-Aqsa Mosque. “Ben-Gvir’s actions are pushing us toward catastrophe.”

Ben-Gvir: “We Are Here To Build The Temple.”

During a settler march at Bab al-Qattanin on the eve of the raid, Ben-Gvir declared:

“We are not content with mourning. We are thinking about building the Temple, extending sovereignty, and imposing rule. We have done this in many places, and we will do it in Gaza as well.”

Then, from inside Al-Aqsa itself, surrounded by police and settlers waving Israeli flags, Ben-Gvir declared:

“The Temple Mount is for Jews, and we will remain here forever.”

His remarks, broadcast widely by Israeli media, were condemned as incitement to religious war by Palestinian officials and international observers alike.

“This is not political bravado, it is a call to arms disguised as religious zeal,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian analyst and former legal advisor to the PLO. “Ben-Gvir is deliberately triggering a religious confrontation over Jerusalem. It’s a dog whistle to extremists and a blueprint for open conflict.”

Eyewitness Accounts: Worshippers Expelled, Journalists Beaten.

While over 2,500 settlers participated in the day-long rotations inside the mosque compound, openly performing religious rituals, blowing shofars, and chanting hymns, Israeli police forcibly expelled Palestinian worshippers, closed the mosque gates, and imposed tight restrictions across the Old City.

“I tried to reach the mosque for dawn prayer, but soldiers stopped us, shouting, ‘Only Jews today!’” said Aisha al-Tamimi, a 63-year-old resident of the Muslim Quarter. “We watched from the alley as settlers marched past us singing, guarded by police with rifles pointed at us.”

Journalists attempting to document the raid were also targeted. Mohammed Abd al-Rahman, a Palestinian journalist, reported being shoved, detained, and having his equipment confiscated. “They wanted no cameras, no evidence,” he said. “They are trying to rewrite reality in silence.”

From Occupation To Theocracy:

Observers say Ben-Gvir is leveraging his ministerial powers to reshape Israeli governance into an overtly religious-ethnonationalist project, placing Jerusalem’s holy sites at its core.

“Ben-Gvir is not just dismantling the status quo; he is weaponising religion as a tool of conquest,” said Hagai El-Ad, former director of Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. “He is inciting a religious war, not just against Palestinians but against pluralism, legality, Muslims and international norms.”

His close ally, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, announced last week that his ministry would provide over 2 million shekels (approximately $545,000) to finance settler “heritage visits” to the mosque, marking the first time the Israeli government has openly allocated funds to religious incursions into the compound.

According to KAN, Israel’s public broadcaster, Eliyahu’s office is working directly with Ben-Gvir’s ministry to obtain permanent police approval for ritual tours at Al-Aqsa.

“This is not rogue extremism,” said Palestinian Authority spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh. “This is state-sponsored, government-funded religious colonisation.”

Legal And Religious Status Trampled:

The storming violates the internationally recognised “status quo” arrangement, which places the Al-Aqsa compound under the custodianship of Jordan’s Ministry of Awqaf and prohibits non-Muslim worship. The Waqf has repeatedly warned that settler rituals and police-guarded incursions are not only illegitimate but unlawful under international humanitarian law.

“This crosses every red line,” the Waqf said in a statement Sunday. “The site is an Islamic mosque. What occurred today, under the leadership of a government minister, was an armed religious incursion.”

UNESCO recognises Al-Aqsa as a Muslim heritage site. Numerous Security Council resolutions have affirmed the inadmissibility of changes to Jerusalem’s status by force. Yet, as UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese noted on X (formerly Twitter):

“When a sitting Israeli minister enters a Muslim holy site under military escort, proclaims it a Jewish space, and performs religious rituals while Palestinians are barred, that is not just occupation, it is religious apartheid. And it is designed to provoke a war.”

Jerusalem Governorate: “Religious War Has Begun.”

The Jerusalem Governorate issued an emergency statement warning that Ben-Gvir’s actions “represent a strategic escalation intended to impose Jewish sovereignty over Al-Aqsa and forcibly divide the mosque.” It declared the storming a “declaration of religious war” and held the Israeli government “fully and directly responsible for the consequences.”

The Governorate also confirmed that settler groups carried Torah scrolls, raised “Temple” banners, and performed rituals in front of the Qibli Mosque, symbolically targeting the holiest areas for Muslims in the compound.

“This was not a visit. It was an assault,” said Adnan Ghaith, former Jerusalem Governor. “It was a dry run for the destruction of Al-Aqsa, and they are no longer hiding it.”

Wider Fallout: A Region On Edge.

Protests broke out across the West Bank, Gaza, and Jordan. In Gaza, Hamas described the raid as a “red line that will not be tolerated.” Islamic Jihad called it “an act of war.” Hezbollah in Lebanon issued a rare joint statement with Shi’a and Sunni clerics condemning the incursion as “a Zionist crime against Islam.”

Jordan summoned the Israeli ambassador and warned that “any attempt to alter the sanctity or status of Al-Aqsa will have regional repercussions.” Meanwhile, the Arab League has called for an emergency session, and the OIC urged Muslim nations to impose diplomatic and economic measures against Israel.

“Al-Aqsa is a sacred red line for 1.8 billion Muslims,” said OIC Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha. “Ben-Gvir is playing with fire on a religious fault line.”

In Summary: From Provocation To Policy, Ben-Gvir’s Incursion Marks A Turning Point.

What unfolded at Al-Aqsa on August 3 was not an isolated provocation or the fringe fanaticism of a single minister. It was the latest stage in a deliberate, state-backed campaign to redefine the religious, political, and spatial landscape of occupied Jerusalem, one settler ritual at a time.

The mass incursion led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, complete with open prayer, nationalist chants, and settler banners, was not only enabled but orchestrated by the Israeli state. From the closure of mosque gates to Palestinian worshippers, to the violent expulsion of journalists, to the newly announced public funding for these raids, every aspect was engineered to send a singular message: that Israeli sovereignty over Al-Aqsa is no longer a matter of aspiration, but implementation.

Ben-Gvir’s incendiary statements, calling for the rebuilding of the Temple and declaring the compound exclusively Jewish, cannot be dismissed as mere political theatre. They represent a strategic escalation with the full weight of institutional power behind them. In doing so, he has lit a match in a place long recognised as one of the most explosive fault lines in the world.

The so-called “status quo” at Al-Aqsa is no longer eroding quietly in the background; it is being bulldozed in broad daylight, in full view of an international community that continues to issue platitudes while failing to enforce international law or hold Israel accountable for its violations.

This is no longer just about access to a holy site. It is about the forced reengineering of Palestinian geography, identity, and religious life under the banner of religious supremacy. Al-Aqsa is the frontline, not only of a religious war incited from within the Israeli cabinet, but of a wider settler-colonial project that seeks to replace, erase, and dominate.

“Ben-Gvir is not just inciting a religious war,” said political analyst Marwan Bishara on Al Jazeera. “He is engineering it. And unless the world intervenes, the consequences will not be limited to Jerusalem.” Unless there is urgent international intervention to halt these provocations, impose consequences, and restore protections for Al-Aqsa under international law, the region may be pushed past a point of no return. Because what is being staged on the stones of Al-Aqsa is not just a symbolic takeover, it is a declaration of conquest.

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