Israeli Organizations Plan Unprecedented Al-Aqsa Incursions in May, Fakhri Abu Diab Warns

Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque are preparing in the coming May for days described as the most difficult and harsh, as intensive Israeli calls seek unprecedented incursions synchronized with several Jewish holidays and occasions.

“The city of Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque are preparing in the coming May for days described as the most difficult and harsh, amid intensive Israeli calls to carry out unprecedented incursions synchronized with several Jewish holidays and occasions”

Al-Jazeera Net

In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Jerusalem affairs specialist Fakhri Abu Diab predicted that the coming month would be among the most violent for Al-Aqsa, attributing it to an attempt by Israeli organizations to compensate for the mosque’s roughly 40-day closure due to the war in the region.

Al-Jazeera Net

Abu Diab said the Temple Mount groups and the occupation seek through these raids to repeat attempts to impose new Judaizing facts, to entrench the Jewish presence and extend full sovereignty over Al-Aqsa, and to provoke Muslim feelings by raising Israeli flags inside the courtyards.

He also described how religious and national Jewish occasions coincide with three Fridays in May, distributed as follows: “The Little Passover,” with May 1st corresponding to what Jews call the Little Passover, and Abu Diab said Israelis always try on this day to bring and sacrifice offerings inside Al-Aqsa Mosque.

He further predicted that “Jerusalem Unity Day” on May 16 would witness the fiercest incursions by extremists and settlers, describing flag-waving marches that cut through the Old City toward the Al-Aqsa, reaching the Western Wall.

Abu Diab said the third occasion to be exploited by settlers to raid Al-Aqsa is the “Festival of the Torah Descent,” and he warned that these moves come as part of a methodical plan to change the status quo, receiving full support from the far-right government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.

A flare-up fear was tied to Monday evening rocket fire from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, with alarm sirens sounding in Jerusalem and across Israeli towns and villages.

The tv5monde report says earlier Hamas threatened Israel with a new military escalation if its forces did not withdraw from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem by 18:00 (15:00 GMT), and it places the Temple Mount clashes earlier Monday morning as leaving more than 300 injured.

Association France Palestine Solidarité

At around 6:00 p.m., tv5monde reports that several rocket salvos were launched from the eastern and northern Gaza Strip toward Israel, and it notes that sirens were triggered in Jerusalem, located more than 80 km from the Gaza Strip.

The report adds that, according to authorities, this forced the evacuation of the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews may pray.

The Israeli army reported seven rockets fired from Gaza, one of which was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile shield, while the Al-Qassam Brigades said they were launching rockets against the enemy in occupied Jerusalem in response to “crimes and aggression” against the holy city and abuses against people in Sheikh Jarrah and the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount.

The tv5monde account also says a hearing at the Israeli Supreme Court scheduled for Monday morning was postponed sine die due to the current context, as Israeli justice officials said Sunday evening.

The conflict’s causes and aims are framed very differently across the sources, with some accounts emphasizing religious timing and others emphasizing colonial sovereignty and apartheid.

“The cycle of colonial violence perpetrated by the State of Israel against the Palestinians takes a new turn in the spring of 2021”

fsu.fr

The Association France Palestine Solidarité text argues that “the Israeli state is built on the basis of colonial sovereignty” and says “It is the cause and the objective of Israeli violence,” rejecting explanations that focus on “high tensions” and a confluence of religious events.

It also says Palestinians are “labeled by Israel and its euro-American allies as a violent, hateful, emotional, irrational, and backward people who continually provoke cycles of violence,” while insisting that “the raw reality of colonial conquest” lies underneath.

In the same text, the author lists specific actions described as violence, including “to prevent ambulances from reaching the roughly 158 injured” and “to arrest at least 450 Palestinians,” and it links those acts to a message of power: “Israel has the last and ultimate judgment on the life and death of Palestinians.”

By contrast, the Al-Jazeera Net interview emphasizes preparations for May and attributes the coming violence to Israeli organizations trying to compensate for Al-Aqsa’s “roughly 40-day closure due to the war in the region” by mobilizing “large numbers of extremists and settlers.”

The tv5monde report ties the rocket exchange to Hamas’s threat over withdrawal from the Temple Mount by 18:00 (15:00 GMT) and to the Al-Qassam Brigades’ claim of responding to “crimes and aggression” against the holy city and abuses in Sheikh Jarrah and Al-Aqsa.

A separate strand of commentary challenges the language of “escalation” and instead argues that apartheid and colonial violence are the underlying pattern.

The revue-ballast.fr translation of a Tribune article says that “Crisis”, “resurgence”, “escalation”, “return”: the vocabulary of intrusion, widely used to cover the news of the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, nonetheless blurs the big picture.

The Conversation

It quotes Amnesty International’s reminder that “the Israeli authorities have progressively created an apartheid system against the Palestinian people as a whole,” and it says a UN special rapporteur endorsed it shortly after.

The text also describes how, on April 15, Israeli armed forces stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, producing “about 150 injured and 500 arrests.”

A Palestinian friend quoted in the translation says: “We speak of escalations, but we do not know where one ends and the next begins.”

The FSU statement similarly describes “the cycle of colonial violence perpetrated by the State of Israel against the Palestinians” and calls for an end to “occupation and colonial violence.”

The sources also lay out how legal proceedings, access rules, and proposed actions are expected to shape what comes next.

“Rockets were fired Monday evening from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, as alarm sirens from Israeli authorities sounded in Jerusalem”

tv5monde

The tv5monde report says a hearing at the Israeli Supreme Court scheduled for Monday morning was postponed sine die due to the current context, and it situates that within tensions tied to the possible eviction of Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah.

tv5monde

The Conversation’s account adds that peace in Jerusalem rests on “free access for Jewish and Muslim worshippers to the sacred sites and on preserving the status quo,” and it describes how challenges to that balance have repeatedly triggered deadly clashes.

In May 2021, The Conversation says clashes intensified after worshippers remained on the Temple Mount esplanade after Friday prayers to protest the eviction threat affecting several Palestinian families, and it describes another flashpoint where Israeli authorities blocked gatherings on the steps of the Agora in front of the Damascus Gate.

The Al-Jazeera Net interview, meanwhile, says Jerusalem-based groups and institutions renewed calls for Palestinians to intensify their presence and stay at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings throughout May.

The Association France Palestine Solidarité text frames the next phase as continuing violence and lists the scale of harm from May 10 to May 21, 2021, stating “256 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children,” and “nearly 2,000 Palestinians were injured”.