CAIRO
Israeli settlers have committed 11,000 assaults since the beginning of this year, the Arab League said.
In a Sunday statement, the league’s secretariat said that attempts by Israeli settlers to force their way into East Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque compound have unprecedentedly surged.
On Sunday, Jewish settlers raised Israeli flags outside the gates of flashpoint compound in East Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in 1967.
This came one week after a Palestinian baby was burnt to death in an arson attack by settlers near the West Bank city of Nablus.
The Arab League accused Israeli authorities of “providing funds to settlers and extremists to continue their assaults against al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem.”
The Israeli violations “run counter to the UN Charter, international law, and international legitimacy resolutions,” the pan-Arab body said, going on to hold Israel responsible for “the crimes committed by extremist settlers.”
The league called for the UN Security Council and signatories of the UN Charter and Geneva Accords to intervene to halt settler assaults.
For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world's third holiest site. Jews, for their part, refer to the area as the "Temple Mount," claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.
In recent months, groups of Jewish extremists – often accompanied by Israeli security forces – have repeatedly forced their way into the Al-Aqsa complex. The frequent violations anger Palestinian Muslims and occasionally lead to violent confrontations.
