Jerusalem’s third holiest site at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem will be closed from Friday after an increase in coronavirus cases, announced the authority administering the city’s Muslim holy sites.
From the highest virus in Israel and the Palestinian territories, the Waqf authority held an emergency meeting with fitness officials.
Waqf members will “suspend access to the faithful from Friday afternoon (September 18) for an era of 3 weeks. “
“We expect citizens to perform this procedure to maintain their fitness and well-being,” Waqf member Hatem Abdel Qader told AFP.
The closure coincides with a three-week lock imposed through Israel, which controls entrances to the complex.
The call to prayer will continue to ring in Jerusalem’s Old City, Qader said, while Waqf workers will be able to pray at the site.
Jordan is the father of the complex, for Muslims like Haram al-Sharif, or sacred sanctuary, and as the Temple Mount through the Jews.
This is just the moment the Waqf has made the decision to close the complex since Israel occupied East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Israel has in the past blocked access to the site of the flashpoint, which is in the midst of a state’s Palestinian aspirations.
The Waqf closed the complex at the beginning of the pandemic in March, when radical closures disrupted devout life in a way noted in centuries.
The Israeli government reported nearly 167,000 cases of coronavirus, with 1,147 deaths.
In the occupied West Bank, another 214 people have died from the virus and the Palestinian authorities have recorded more than 30,200 cases.