Hamas, the Islamist organization that runs the Gaza Strip, has warned that it will respond to “the Israeli occupation’s violations across Palestine and at the Al-Aqsa Mosque” during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. Salah al-Aruri, deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, in an interview on the movement’s official English language website, said that Israel “tries to provoke the Palestinians in Ramadan, impose temporal and spatial division, and permit settlers to perform rituals,” and added that this “may prompt an action on the part of Palestinians.”
The English-language version of Aruri’s remarks say that Hamas has “no plans” to initiate an escalation during Ramadan, but the Arabic version does not include that disclaimer.
Non-Muslims can visit the site of the Al-Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount at specific times but are not allowed to pray there. The Jewish festival of Passover coincides with part of Ramadan, and is a time when more Jews visit the site. In recent years Jews have prayed in secret at the site, but the prayers have become more open and reported on in recent months.
Meanwhile, Hamas spokesperson Abdul Latif al-Qanoua in a statement posted to the Hamas website on Wednesday said that Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails plan to launch an open-ended hunger strike during Ramadan “against the Israeli occupation’s strict measures imposed on them.” Al-Qanou reaffirmed “the Palestinian people’s preparedness to support Palestinian detainees in their quest for dignity and freedom at any cost.”