RAMALLAH, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) warned Saturday against "allowing settler incursions into Al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem on the morning of Eid al-Adha festival and obstructing Muslim prayers."
The PLO Human Rights and Civil Society Department said in an emailed press statement that such a move on this very day "harms every Muslim and their sacred rituals," urging for "implementation of international laws to face the Israeli schemes for the Al-Aqsa mosque."
Muslims mark Eid al-Adha holiday, one of the two main Islamic holidays that comes with the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, on Sunday, which coincides this year with the anniversary that Jews mark as "Temple destruction."
Jewish groups have called on their followers to force their way into Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday, to mark the anniversary of Temple destruction.
Israeli public radio reported that Israeli police is carrying out its preparations ahead of the announced day.
In response to the calls, the Higher Islamic Commission (HIC) in East Jerusalem, the Council for Waqf and Islamic Affairs and the Council of Fatwa called on all mosques around the city of Jerusalem to close on Eid al-Adha, in order to allow more people to join Eid Al-Adha prayers at al-Aqsa mosque compound as a means "to protect the mosque" during the anticipated raid.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future independent state, while Israel wants all Jerusalem to be its eternal capital.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and declared the whole city as its eternal indivisible capital in 1980, but the move has never been recognized by most of the international community.
