RAMALLAH – Dozens of Israeli internal intelligence service Shin Bet agents and Jewish worshipers Thursday stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a Palestinian official said. Sheikh Abdulazeem Salhab, the head of Islamic Waqf Council in occupied Jerusalem, said that 30 Shin Bet officers and a group of some 40 worshipers headed by Moshe Feiglin, a far-right Knesset Member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party entered the complex through the Al-Magharebah gate. Salhab added that Feiglin, who heads the Jewish Leadership faction within Likud and challenges Netanyahu's leadership of the party, entered the Al-Musalla Al-Marwani, Al-Musalla Al-Qibli and the Dome of the Rock. He added that Feiglin “started provoking the Muslim worshipers under the guard of the Shin Bet agents.” He added that nearly 3,000 Jewish worshipers and 2,000 police officers have stormed the complex since early 2012. He added that the daily storming of the Muslim's third holiest shrine is part of the Israeli measures to Judaize what has been left of Jerusalem “by intensifying the Jewish presence in it.” Israel captured East Jerusalem in June 1967, annexed it in 1980, and has built settlements that are home to 300,000 Jewish settlers. On Wednesday, the US Democratic Party amended its platform to include language supporting occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Israeli media said that the last-minute change came in the wake of mounting criticism from Democratic members of Congress incensed that the 2008 platform's declaration backing occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel had been removed from the 2012 text. The 2008 platform had expressly said that “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel”. However, the Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said that the addition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital to the party's platform does not make up for its original intentions. “I have no doubt that (US President Barack) Obama put Jerusalem back in his party's platform out of political and electoral considerations and because of the sharp criticism from Israel and the US,” Rivlin told Israel's Radio. He added party did not remove Jerusalem from the platform “by mistake or because of forgetfulness.” “This is a problematic sign, indicating the gradual reduction of the American government's strategic commitment to Israel,” Rivlin explained.
