58,310 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Jewish New Year, a 14% increase from last year
Extremist "Temple" groups announced that 58,310 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque during the past Jewish year, extending from October 3, 2024, to September 22, 2025, a 14% increase over the previous year, which recorded 51,223 intruders.
The Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Jerusalem stated that the seriousness of the situation is not limited to the high number of intruders, but extends to the systematic nature of the violations carried out inside the mosque with official government support, including:
• The participation of ministers and Knesset members in the incursions, and allowing settlers to perform prayers inside Al-Aqsa.
• Public and collective prayers inside Al-Aqsa.
• Blowing the shofar.
• Bringing in plant and animal sacrifices, in addition to wine and consecrated bread (according to various holidays).
• Access to the roof of the Dome of the Rock, considered the "altar site" according to biblical beliefs.
• Wearing synagogue prayer tools (tefillin, shalit).
• Raising the Israeli flag.
• Singing the Israeli national anthem.
The center noted that these practices have become a public and recurring phenomenon in recent months, as the occupation police have allowed settlers to pray loudly and collectively throughout the mosque, unlike previous years. Jewish prayers have become a daily occurrence inside Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The Wadi Hilweh Information Center also noted that recent months have witnessed unprecedented public rituals and celebrations, including marriage contracts, engagement and wedding blessings, coming-of-age ceremonies, religious gatherings, groom's gatherings, and memorial services for soldiers and settlers.
In parallel, "Temple" groups continue their calls for intensified incursions during the Jewish New Year (today, tomorrow, and the day after), including prayers inside Al-Aqsa Mosque and the blowing of the shofar. Today, 418 settlers stormed the mosque during the morning and afternoon incursion periods.
The raids are organized daily—except on Fridays, Saturdays, and Islamic holidays—through the Dung Gate, whose keys have been controlled by the occupation authorities since the occupation of the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967.
According to daily monitoring by the Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Jerusalem, what has been happening at Al-Aqsa Mosque over the past months reveals a plan to impose a new religious reality that threatens the sanctity of the mosque.
