By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The foreign ministers of eight Muslim-majority nations issued a joint condemnation on Tuesday of the systematic desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, holding Israeli authorities directly responsible for escalating incursions by far-right settlers and demanding an immediate halt to a deliberate campaign to upend decades of legal and religious precedent at one of the world’s most contested holy sites.
The statement — signed by the top diplomats of Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia — arrived against a backdrop of intensifying settler activity at the compound. More than 65,000 Israeli settlers entered Al-Aqsa in 2025, a 22 percent increase over the prior year, according to the International Jerusalem Foundation, which drew on data from the Islamic Waqf Administration in occupied East Jerusalem. Settler groups have maintained near-daily incursions into the mosque’s courtyards, except on Fridays and Saturdays, entering in two shifts — morning and evening — as a methodical effort to impose a temporal and spatial division of the site.
The eight foreign ministers condemned in the strongest terms the continued incursions by extremist Israeli settlers into Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of Israeli forces, as well as the raising of the Israeli flag within its courtyards, calling those actions a flagrant violation of international law, the relevant United Nations resolutions, and the historical and legal status quo at the holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem.
The ministers reaffirmed their categorical rejection of any effort to alter the legal and historical status of Jerusalem’s holy sites, and they pointed specifically to Jordan’s special custodial role — a designation with deep roots in the 1994 peace treaty between Amman and Tel Aviv and in centuries of Hashemite tradition. They reiterated that the entire area of Al-Aqsa Mosque, which amounts to 144 dunams, is a place of worship exclusively for Muslims, and that the Jerusalem Endowments and Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs Department, affiliated with the Jordanian Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, is the legal entity with exclusive jurisdiction to administer the mosque’s affairs and regulate entry to it.
The joint statement was the latest in a series of increasingly urgent multilateral warnings from the same coalition of nations. In March, the same group of foreign ministers condemned Israeli authorities for closing the gates of Al-Aqsa to Muslim worshippers during the holy month of Ramadan, calling the security restrictions and discriminatory access policies a flagrant violation of international law and the historical status quo. During Ramadan 2026, Israeli occupation authorities ordered the closure of Al-Aqsa for the first time since 1967, leaving the mosque empty on the final Friday of the holy month — when attendance would normally exceed 300,000 worshippers — and again on the twenty-seventh night and during Eid al-Fitr, marking the first such closure in 539 years.
The provocations have not been confined to anonymous settler groups. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir conducted his own raid on the mosque compound on April 7, even as Muslim worshippers remained barred from the site, while Israeli police simultaneously drew up plans to allow up to 150 settlers at a time to enter — a number that Palestinian institutions noted would effectively keep the mosque open to Jewish incursions while remaining closed to Muslim prayer.
Last August, more than 3,000 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa in a single day in what the Islamic Waqf Department described as an unprecedented escalation, a mass incursion led by Ben Gvir and several other far-right members of the Israeli Knesset.
Tuesday’s statement held Israeli authorities directly accountable for bringing those episodes to an end. The ministers warned that repeated violations at the site do not merely offend religious sensibilities but carry tangible geopolitical consequences — exacerbating regional tensions, fueling extremism, and actively undermining international peace efforts. They called on Israel, as the occupying power, to meet its obligations under international law.
The eight nations also used the statement to reaffirm their broader solidarity with the Palestinian cause. They expressed unwavering support for Palestinian self-determination and called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital — a formulation consistent with the Arab Peace Initiative and longstanding UN resolutions. They pledged continued support for efforts to end Israel’s occupation and reach a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace through a two-state solution.
Jordan, which holds the Hashemite custodianship over Al-Aqsa and has historically served as the most direct interlocutor with Israel on the mosque’s administration, has separately issued its own condemnations in recent days, reiterating its absolute rejection of the continued settler incursions and warning against any attempt to alter the site’s historical and legal status.
The episode has a familiar shape. Pakistan issued a nearly identical condemnation in April after settlers stormed the compound and planted the Israeli flag inside its courtyards, calling those acts reprehensible and warning of the risks of further regional escalation. Tuesday’s joint statement represented an effort to amplify that message through a unified multilateral front — a signal, diplomats in the region suggested, that patience among Israel’s neighbors and key Arab partners is wearing thin.
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