Over the last few years, and especially since it launched its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, Israel has been tightening its siege of al-Aqsa Mosque, repressing Palestinian Muslim presence at Islam’s third holiest site in an unprecedented manner. In early July 2026, Jerusalem Story met with some of the employees of the Jerusalem Waqf Department, responsible for maintaining the site.

These are just a few of their testimonies, which reflect everyday life at al-Aqsa Mosque for Palestinian Muslims. All have been anonymized for the safety of the speakers:1

• “A Waqf employee requested to bring in bottles of mineral water for personal use, but the Israeli police, who have complete control over the gates of al-Aqsa Mosque, refused to allow them in.”
• “As soon as an employee began repairing the handwashing sink in his office within al-Haram al-Sharif, the police stormed the office, arrested the employee, and issued him a lengthy ban from al-Aqsa.”
• “When an agricultural worker approached the courtyard to uproot the tall invasive weeds that had spread throughout al-Aqsa Mosque and posed a fire hazard, he was immediately attacked by several Israeli police officers who threatened to expel him from the compound.”
• “The employees and guards of al-Aqsa Mosque were surprised when the Israeli police, without warning, broke down four doors within the compound, including to the Quran House and Hadith House. They prevented the Waqf Department employees from repairing them and threatened that anyone who approached them would be arrested. They also prohibited the placement of locks on the doors for protection. These may be the first steps toward occupying these important buildings within the compound.”

Members of the Jerusalem Waqf Council told Jerusalem Story that this unprovoked Israeli escalation aims first and foremost to strangle the Waqf Department, preventing it from carrying out its most basic duties within al-Aqsa Mosque.

These tactics violate the Status Quo agreement, the second iteration of which was set in the first days after Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem in early June 1967. On June 17, 1967, then Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan asked imams of the mosque and prominent Jerusalemite figures to return to managing al-Aqsa Mosque and holding prayers there. The Jerusalemites refused, insisting that al-Aqsa Mosque could not be reopened until the Israeli army withdrew from its perimeter and removed any Israeli symbols placed there, including the Israeli flag.

Dayan conceded, allowing the Waqf Department to manage al-Aqsa Mosque and its facilities, as well as non-Muslim visitations to the site. This included Jewish visitors, who would be under the Waqf Department’s supervision, while Israel would provide external protection.

Today, this Status Quo has all but ceased to exist, with Israel controlling every aspect of al-Aqsa Mosque and interfering in the Waqf Department’s work.

According to Waqf Department sources, Israel stipulated that it would lift the current suffocating siege on the mosque if senior officials from the Waqf Department visit the nearest Israeli police station “just to have a cup of coffee there.”

The Waqf Department categorically rejected the stipulation. On the one hand, appearance at an Israeli police station carries the risk of detention. On the other, it would imply that the Waqf authorities are subordinate to the Israeli police. This, Waqf officials told Jerusalem Story, is a blatant infringement on the Waqf Department’s sovereignty and Jordanian Hashemite Custodianship over both Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.

The siege imposed on al-Aqsa Mosque extends to anyone contemplating visiting the mosque, including Waqf employees. When Mohammad (an employee, who requested anonymity for fear of police harassment and expulsion) arrived at his workplace inside the mosque, as he has done every day for years, an Israeli police officer stopped him at one of the gates and told him he could not enter because, “judging by your appearance, you seem to be planning trouble.”2

Mohammad replied that he was a Waqf employee and entering his workplace. Despite showing his Waqf Department ID, the policeman would not relent. Instead, he said, in a threatening tone: “You will not enter today.”

Mohammad then approached a senior Israeli officer who happened to be present and explained the situation. The officer responded: “I don’t interfere in the work of the policeman. This is your problem.” The policeman then shouted at Mohammad: “If you don’t leave immediately, you will be arrested and banned from al-Aqsa Mosque for six months.”

This incident is not unique. According to senior Waqf Department officials, the majority of al-Aqsa Mosque guards suffer from such treatment, to the point that a significant number of them today are even outright banned from the holy site by police for extended periods, and some are even detained for undisclosed, supposedly classified, security reasons (see Israel Is Banning More and More Palestinian Figures from Entering al-Aqsa Mosque on Arbitrary Grounds). Waqf sources indicate that since the beginning of 2026, Israeli forces have banned more than 150 Waqf guards for differing lengths of time from the site, in addition to hundreds of worshippers.3

Israel’s aim is to increase pressure on the Islamic Waqf to provide additional security at the gates and within the compound in line with Israeli demands. According to a source from the Waqf Department, the total number of Waqf guards on the Jordanian payroll is 250. Jordan has tried to add tens more since Israel has banned so many of them from standing guard, due to the low number of guards remaining to carry out guard duty, but Israel has refused every one of them, citing undisclosed “security reasons.”

In its comprehensive report published on the situation at al-Aqsa Mosque, the Palestinian Information Center concluded:

Defending al-Aqsa Mosque is therefore not limited to preventing incursions by extremists or refusing closures; it is also about protecting the authority that manages the mosque and preserves its identity and religious function. Every attack on the guards, every obstruction of restoration work, every expulsion of staff, and every imposition of entry restrictions is a direct attack on the mosque’s administration itself.

Palestinian Muslims are acutely aware of the current situation at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, where only last month, Israel brazenly scrapped parts of the 1997 Hebron Agreement in order to take over planning and construction powers of the mosque.5 Here, the creeping process of control over space, utilities, and access has come to its logical conclusion, with Hebron now blocked by 106 gates, Muslim access being gradually eroded, and the Islamic call to prayer being banned6 (see Past as Prologue? To Read Israeli Designs on al-Aqsa Mosque, Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque Offers Chilling Clues).

At al-Aqsa Mosque, a recent report by Middle East Eye found that the United States and Israel are “actively working” to strip Jordan of its historic custodianship and replace it with an arrangement that would grant Jews “equal access” to the holy site and give Israel control over appointing imams, preachers, and senior officials.7 This only added to the Waqf officials’ growing unease and sense of alarm.

For Palestinians, the management of al-Aqsa Mosque is not measured solely by agreements and regulations but by steadfastness in the face of the Zionist project of dispossession. As long as Israel seeks to dismantle the Islamic authority over the mosque, upholding this authority remains an integral part of the battle for all of Jerusalem.

In response to the tightening siege on al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, the 87-year-old revered member of the Waqf Council and preacher of al-Aqsa Mosque (see Ekrima Sabri), called on “all who can reach al-Aqsa to do so—to increase their presence in the courtyards of al-Aqsa Mosque, filling it with worshippers and students of Islamic knowledge.”8

In an interview with Jerusalem Story, Sheikh Sabri emphasized that a constant and unwavering Palestinian Muslim presence today constitutes the strongest line of defense against Israel’s attempts to Judaize the mosque.

Sheikh Sabri, who is himself banned from al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli order (see Israel Detains Muslim Spiritual Leader Sheikh Ekrima Sabri and Bans Him from Entering al-Aqsa Mosque for Six Months), explained that the recent escalation in provocative Jewish incursions, including the performance of Talmudic rituals at the site, poses a real and direct threat to the Muslim and Palestinian identity of al-Aqsa Mosque.

In the face of this worsening situation, the Islamic Waqf Department finds itself relatively powerless. Fuad Dakkak, a prominent Jerusalemite engineer and member of the Waqf Council (see Jerusalem Receives a New Islamic Waqf Council amid Increasing Israeli Violations of al-Aqsa Mosque), told Jerusalem Story that what is happening at al-Aqsa Mosque is beyond anything any Jerusalemite could have imagined:

Dakkak emphasized that the measures taken by the Israeli police at al-Aqsa Mosque are negatively impacting the entire Old City, especially its markets, which have become deserted (see “The Old City Is Breathing Its Last Breath”—Jerusalem Merchants Decry Enforced Market Closures) due to the absence of worshippers from outside Jerusalem and the fear among Jerusalem residents of reaching the Old City (see As Ramadan Ends, al-Aqsa Mosque Remains Empty and Palestinians Take to the Streets in Silent Protest).

Even before they reach al-Aqsa Mosque, Dakkak explained, Israeli police deliberately detain and abuse Palestinian youth at the gates to the Old City. This measure, which was introduced at the outset of the war on Gaza, has remained in place despite the ceasefires reached in Gaza and with Iran. “What we are witnessing,” he elaborated, “is a complete collapse of economic and social life in the Old City, which cannot survive without al-Aqsa Mosque.”