Ramadan is coming. It’s the time when Hamas usually claims that Israel is taking over Al-Aqsa mosque. What really happens is that /Israel places limits on the number of Muslim worshippers that are allowed to go in. The mosque and courtyard have limited space. Israel also screens out potential rioters by age. In the past, younger Muslims have thrown rocks from the Al-Aqsa courtyard at Jewish worshippers near the Western Wall.
There are also a couple of things that need to be made clear. The Al-Aqsa mosque has a silver dome and is located a little bit south of the Dome of the Rock. The Dome is the blue structure with the gold top. It was first built in the 7th century on the site of the original Jewish Temple. Christian rulers had always left the site as a pile of rubble. The Muslims wanted to show that they were not afraid to build there. The current building was refurbished and has quotations from the Quran written on the edge of the top layer that call on everyone to become Muslims. Mohammed never visited Jerusalem (except in a dream). He had a vision of traveling from the near mosque (in Mecca) to the far mosque. Al-Aqsa is considered to be the far mosque.
It looks like Hamas is hoping for an uprising of West Bank Palestinians that will end up causing international pressure on Israel to stop the war. If that occurs before Israel either frees hostages or destroys the remaining terrorist units in Rafah (or both) Hamas could, conceivable, declare victory.
The media are certainly doing their best to help. Recent airdrops of aid for Palestinian civilians included US Air Force C-130s. The US said it was to make up for the lack of aid getting through on the ground (and made it sound like Israel was to blame). The reality is that Hamas hijacks aid trucks coming from Egypt, and whatever they don’t keep for themselves is sold at exorbitant prices at shops that are associated with Hamas. Everyone knows this. But the US government, the ICRC, and major media like Sky News all refrain from saying so out loud.
Wetherhorn 