Ramallah: Israel has banned Palestinian children from playing in open areas of Al Haram Al Sharif—Islam’s third holiest site which houses the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
Right-wing Jewish groups which have stepped up their intrusive raids on the holy Muslim site say the children playing agitated them.
Al Aqsa mosque—commissioned by Islam’s second Caliph Omar—was built on top of the ancient remnants of the Temple Mount, a site sacred in Judaism which was destroyed in the 4th century by the Romans, during their rule.
Palestinians say the restrictions imposed on them and the raids of the Jewish colonists are indicative of an Israeli plan to Judaise Jerusalem and erase all Muslim and Palestinian identity from the holy city.
