RAMALLAH, Palestine / ISTANBUL

Palestine warned of “grave repercussions” on Wednesday from an Israeli decision to transfer the authority over the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron to a settler council.

According to Israeli media, Tel Aviv had abolished the authority of the Palestinian-run Hebron Municipality over the mosque, and reassigned it to the religious council of the Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron in the southern West Bank.

The media report did not specify the scope of powers transferred, but said the move aims to facilitate “structural changes” at the site, calling it “great news for the settlement.”

“This decision represents a flagrant violation of international law and relevant UN resolutions,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It warned of grave repercussions from the move and called for the urgent intervention of UNESCO and the international community to halt the implementation of the Israeli decision.

The Israeli move marks the first major shift in the status of the mosque since the 1994 recommendations of the Shamgar Commission, which divided access, allocating 63% of the site to Jewish worshippers and 37% to Muslims.

That division followed the 1994 massacre by extremist settler Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 Palestinian worshippers during dawn prayers.

The mosque is located in Hebron’s Old City in an area under full Israeli control where roughly 400 illegal settlers live under the protection of around 1,500 Israeli soldiers.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank by Israeli forces and illegal settlers, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.