Osama al Sharif

Israel is racing to annex occupied Palestinian lands through a systematic plan that involves seizing religious, cultural and historical landmarks, erasing Palestinians’ ties to their native territories.

Last week, the Israeli Civil Administration — a military body overseeing the West Bank — transferred all administrative authority over the Ibrahimi Mosque from the Palestinian Hebron Municipality to the religious council of the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba. The move ends Islamic administration of the site. The municipality condemned the action, noting that it violates UNESCO’s designation of the Ibrahimi Mosque and Hebron’s Old City as endangered world heritage sites.

Unlike Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem’s Old City, the Ibrahimi Mosque is regarded as holy by Muslims, Jews and Christians alike as the resting place of Prophet Ibrahim, patriarch of all three faiths. Until 1967, it was administered by the Muslim Awqaf and Hebron Municipality.

It became a flashpoint when Israeli authorities allowed Jews to pray at the site. In 1994, armed Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein entered the mosque during Ramadan and opened fire on worshippers, killing 29 and wounding more than 120. Following the massacre, a 1997 agreement split control: 63 percent allocated to Jewish worshippers, 37 percent to Muslims.

The site remained contentious, as Jewish zealots provoked Muslim worshippers and Israel oversaw a massive Jewish takeover of Palestinian homes in Hebron’s old quarter. Muslims were barred from accessing the mosque on Jewish holidays, while the call to prayer was banned at least 80 times in September alone.

Last week’s move stripped Palestinians of all administrative privileges. Israeli forces seized planning powers, blocked Palestinian staff from accessing utility systems and padlocked control cabinets to prevent maintenance access.

What began as an interim spatial and temporal division has become full Israeli control. Few countries condemned the move.

The silence over the Ibrahimi Mosque takeover has emboldened radical elements in Israel’s far-right government to eye their next target: Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Since Ariel Sharon’s 2000 incursion of the Al-Aqsa compound — sparking the Second Intifada — successive Israeli governments, especially under Benjamin Netanyahu, have loosened restrictions on Jewish worshippers visiting the exclusively Muslim site. Al-Aqsa is recognized as Muslim under the status quo agreement, administered by Jordan’s Awqaf. King Abdullah has repeatedly clashed with Netanyahu over status quo breaches.

Under the current Israeli government, which includes extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Jewish incursions have skyrocketed. Between October 2024 and September 2025, more than 58,000 Israeli settlers stormed the compound, a 14 percent increase from the previous 12 months. Settlers now conduct twice-daily incursions protected by Israeli forces and are permitted to perform religious rites — a clear breach of agreements.

Jordanian and Palestinian officials have warned for years that Israeli extremists aim to demolish the mosque to build a Jewish temple on its ruins, pointing to dangerous subterranean excavations threatening the mosque’s foundations.

Israeli forces have implemented unprecedented multiday closures, restricting Awqaf employees to specific time slots and preventing Palestinian access. The most dangerous escalation came in 2021, when an Israeli court ruled that Jewish silent prayer at Al-Aqsa is not a “criminal act,” effectively transforming it from an exclusively Islamic site to a joint Islamic-Jewish site.

The eastern section, Bab Al-Rahma, has effectively become an undeclared temple, with settlers raising Israeli flags and performing Jewish religious practices.

In a grave departure from decades-old policy, Netanyahu on Sunday publicly backed changes to arrangements at Al-Haram Al-Sharif (which Israelis call Temple Mount), insisting new policies allowing Jewish prayer do not violate the fragile status quo.

“The changes Ben-Gvir is making are not changing the status quo and it is in coordination with me. I decide on the policy,” Netanyahu said. His remarks followed Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon’s warning that Ben-Gvir was unilaterally altering the religious status quo, breaching government commitments to preserve existing worship arrangements, according to Haaretz.

With daily incursions continuing, Netanyahu’s acquiescence to Ben-Gvir’s violations and the Ibrahimi Mosque takeover as precedent, there are real concerns Israel will impose de facto temporal and spatial division of Al-Aqsa this year.

Meanwhile, Israel is advancing its control over West Bank antiquities, including areas nominally under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction. In late 2025, a draft law was presented to the Knesset that seeks to extend Israel’s authority over “antiquities and heritage sites” in the West Bank, explicitly including Areas A and B — which should remain under Palestinian civil administration as per the Oslo Accords.

This followed a government decision to extend the antiquities officer’s authority from Area C to parts of Area B, violating Oslo’s division of powers and granting authority to prohibit, demolish and intervene at any archaeological site.

Weak Arab and Muslim responses to these violations only embolden Israeli religious extremists. Jordan cannot stand alone against these Israeli plans. Urgent joint action is needed, especially from countries that signed up to the Abraham Accords, to clearly object.

The Ibrahimi Mosque case reveals Israel’s strategy: complete administrative control transferred from Palestinian authorities to Israeli settlement councils — a dangerous precedent Palestinians fear will be replicated at Al-Aqsa.

This is annexation by other means, aimed at erasing Palestinian identity and replacing it with an exclusively Jewish one — it is cultural genocide.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.

Source: Arab News