A delegation of senior Hamas officials visited Moscow to meet with Russian officials amid ongoing clashes on the Temple Mount, a report from the Hebrew-language Walla website said on Wednesday morning.
According to a separate report by Al Mayadeen, a media outlet affiliated with the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group, the Hamas delegation was being headed by deputy chairman of the Gaza-based terror group, Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook.
Hamas spokesman Muhammad Hamadeh on Tuesday warned that “harming the Al-Aqsa mosque is playing with detonators.”
Hamas’s military arm, the Al-Qassam Brigades, took responsibility for the killing of a 23-year-old security guard over the weekend.
The purpose of the visit to Moscow was to discuss clashes taking place on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Palestinian Hamas movement supporters wave Palestinian and Islamic flags in front of a banner depicting a fighter holding a hand-held anti-aircraft missile launcher as they rally by the Dome of the Rock mosque at the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in Jerusalem, after the morning Eid al-Fitr prayer, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, on May 2, 2022. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty)
On Tuesday , the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, threatened that if Israel “violates” the Al Aqsa Mosque, it would launch another war.
“All factions of the resistance in the Gaza Strip must be prepared and ready,” he said. “After Eid al-Fitr, the Israeli invasions of the al-Aqsa Mosque will begin, and the temporary and spatial division phase will begin.”
On Monday, more than 200,000 Muslims ascended the Al Aqsa Mosque for Eid al-Fitr prayers marking the end of Ramadan. A large banner with a photo of a Hamas terrorist and the terror group’s insignia was raised on the Temple Mount (see above).
Cheers from the vast crowd were heard as the banner, which contained an Eid blessing for the “Arab and Muslim Ummah,” was hoisted near the Dome of the Rock. Chants of “We will sacrifice our lives for the sake of al-Aqsa” were heard.
The Temple Mount compound, which houses the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine, is Judaism’s holiest site as the location of the biblical temples and Islam’s third holiest site. It has been the scene of a string of violent clashes in recent weeks.
Palestinian rioters hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli police from inside the Al Aqsa Mosque. Similar clashes triggered last May’s 11-day conflict with the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
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