OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)
When the same scenes recur in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, heavily armed occupation forces, settlers entering under protection, worshipers being restricted, and a city being pushed to the brink of explosion, the question of why Al-Aqsa incursions recur becomes an eminently political question, not just a news inquiry. The matter does not relate to isolated incidents, nor to fleeting security reactions, but rather to a gradual, intentional Israeli policy targeting the place, identity, sovereignty, and public awareness together.
Al-Aqsa is not just a religious site in Palestinian calculations, but an explicit title for the Arab and Islamic presence in Jerusalem. For this reason, any incursion is not read as a passing visit, as the Israeli narrative tries to market it, but as an act of incursion protected by force, carrying a direct message that Israel wants to redefine who owns the decision in the Mosque, who has the right to movement in it, who is treated in it as a rightful owner, and who is treated as an intruder in their land and holy sites.
Why do the Aqsa incursions recur?
The answer closest to reality is that the incursions recur because they are part of an ongoing Israeli project, not a temporary exception. Israel does not deal with Al-Aqsa as a sensitive file that must be avoided from exploding, but rather as an arena capable of political and religious re-engineering gradually. Every new incursion tests the limits of the Palestinian response, measures Arab and Islamic reactions, and monitors the position of the international community, which often contents itself with the language of concern without any real cost to the aggressor.
Repetition here is a tool in itself. When the scene turns into a routine, what was shocking yesterday becomes less shocking today. This is one of the most dangerous Israeli mechanisms turning the violation into an ordinary matter, then building on it legally, from a security standpoint, and media-wise. Therefore, the repetition of incursions cannot be understood without understanding the logic of accumulation: a small step today paves the way for a larger step tomorrow.
Al-Aqsa in the heart of the Judaization project
Jerusalem is not a margin in the Zionist project, and Al-Aqsa is not a detail inside the city. Since the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, the occupation authorities have worked to change the character of the city demographically, architecturally, and symbolically. Al-Aqsa has always been at the center of this clash, because it represents the last of what remains of Palestinian political, religious, and sovereign meaning in occupied Jerusalem.
For this reason, the incursions come within a comprehensive path: restricting the Awqaf, pursuing the Murabitin, expelling activists and guards, controlling the gates of the Mosque, interfering in restoration work, and demonstrating power inside the sanctuary itself. The idea is not only to allow settlers to enter, but to establish that the occupation is the one that organizes the rhythm of the place and determines the rules of access to it.
Here, attention must be paid to the fact that Judaization does not necessarily move in dramatic leaps always. Sometimes it moves through details that seem procedural, increasing the numbers of those making incursions, extending the times of the incursion, protecting public Talmudic rituals, tightening restrictions on Muslim worshipers on holidays, Fridays, and seasons. But these details, when combined, create an actual change in the balance of control.
From incursion to the attempt to impose division
One of the fundamental reasons for the repetition of incursions is the endeavor to impose a temporal and spatial division of Al-Aqsa, similar to what happened in the Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil. It is true that Israel does not always announce this in a final official formula, but it accumulates facts in this direction: specific hours for those making incursions, evacuation procedures for worshipers, areas where objection is prohibited, and an increasing allowance of Jewish religious manifestations inside the Mosque.
This path does not advance at the same speed in every stage, because it sometimes collides with popular resistance and the sensitivity of the file regionally. But it does not stop. When pressures recede, Israel returns to push the next step. Therefore, the repetition seems to many a continuous provocation, while in Israeli calculations it is a means of testing and gradual achievement at the same time.
In its monthly report on May 2026, the Palestinian Governorate of Jerusalem documented the martyrdom of three martyrs, and the incursion of 7,244 settlers into the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque, in addition to recording 101 cases of arrest, more than 67 expulsion decisions, and 84 demolition and bulldozing operations, in the context of a policy aimed at imposing a new reality in the city and consolidating colonial control over it.
The role of extremist religious settler groups
The scene cannot be explained without stopping at the extremist settler groups that have made the incursion of Al-Aqsa an announced political and religious program. These groups do not move on the margin of the state, but rather their ability to influence inside the political and security establishment increases. Many of their symbols have become part of the governance or its general atmosphere, which means that the separator between the provocation of the settler street and the government decision has become weaker than ever before.
These groups push towards two things at the same time: intensifying the incursions, and changing their nature. The goal is no longer just a symbolic entry, but practicing rituals, public bowing and prostration, introducing tools and clothing with religious significance, and demanding a permanent right in the place. This is a dangerous development, because it moves the incursion from the level of political provocation to the level of religious sovereign claim.
In contrast, the Israeli occupation government sometimes employs these extremists as an internal pressure card. Whenever it needs to stabilize the cohesion of its right-wing coalition, or escape its crises, or address its electoral base, Al-Aqsa becomes a ready arena to send messages. From here we understand why the pace of incursions rises on certain Hebrew occasions, or at moments of internal political tension.
The security dimension is not a sufficient explanation
The occupation often justifies its measures in Al-Aqsa with the language of security and public order. But this narrative hides more than it reveals. If the goal were purely security, we would not see organized facilities for settlers under the protection of hundreds of elements, in exchange for preventing thousands of Palestinians from reaching it, or assaulting them, or imposing ages, or closing gates, or turning the Mosque into a temporary barracks.
The matter in its essence is not security, but using security as a tool to manage control. When the Palestinians in their holiest of holies become a subject of prevention, inspection, and expulsion, while the person making the incursion gets a safe passage and official protection, then we are in front of a clear colonial equation: the owner of the land is treated as a danger, and the aggressor is treated as a person of privilege.
This does not mean that Israel does not calculate the account of the explosion. It does that accurately, and often tries to press to the limit that achieves gains without paying large prices. But the security calculations here are subordinate to the political goal, not an alternative to it.
Why does Israel insist on normalizing the incursions?
Because the most dangerous thing it can achieve in Jerusalem is normalizing the abnormal. Israel knows that the battle over Al-Aqsa is not only a battle of the field, but a battle of perception as well. If public opinion gets used to the scenes of the incursion as a recurring news item that changes nothing, it would have extracted part of the power of moral and political response.
Normalizing the incursions serves Israel in more than one direction. It consolidates in the Israeli consciousness that reaching Al-Aqsa is an acquired right, sends a message to the Palestinians that their ability to prevent is weakening, tests the limits of the official Arab reaction, and benefits from the world being busy with other crises. Every time a wide incursion passes without consequences, it turns into a precedent to be built upon later.
Here appears an important difference between the individual event and the general path. Some incursions may seem limited in time or number, but their real value is measured by what they add to the chain of precedents. Therefore, reading each incursion in isolation from its predecessor and successor serves the Israeli narrative more than it serves the understanding of reality.
Where does international responsibility lie?
Legally, Jerusalem is an occupied land, and Al-Aqsa is part of this reality which is governed by clear rules in international law. But the chronic problem is that the legal text is something, and the will to impose it is another thing. Israel moves with confidence because it realizes that verbal condemnations do not stop a soldier, do not prevent a settler, and do not cancel a field decision.
This international helplessness does not explain the incursions alone, but it encourages their continuation. When there is no real political cost for violating the historical and legal status of the Mosque, continuing the violation becomes a low-risk option. From this angle, the repetition of incursions is not only a result of Israeli extremism, but also a result of an Arab, Islamic, and international deterrent vacuum.
How do Palestinians face this path?
Despite the severity of oppression, Palestinians did not deal with Al-Aqsa as a symbolic file far from daily life. Ribat, journeying, dense presence in seasons, and popular confrontation in moments of danger, all contributed repeatedly to disrupting or delaying the Israeli plans. What happened in previous stations proved that the popular will is capable of imposing equations.
But the confrontation here is not easy nor stable in pace. It is affected by the volume of oppression, by policies of expulsion and arrest, by living conditions, by Palestinian political division, and by the wider regional climate. Therefore, talking about protecting Al-Aqsa should not be reduced to a seasonal reaction, but rather to building a state of permanent awareness, follow-up, and support.
Also, the battle over the narrative is no less important than the battle in the field. Calling things by their names is a fundamental matter: what is happening is an incursion, not a visit. What happens in the courtyards of the Mosque is an imposition by force, not the practice of a natural right. When language is distorted, the truth of the conflict is distorted with it.
Why do the incursions recur at this timing specifically?
Sometimes the escalation is linked to Jewish religious seasons during which extremist groups seek to extract larger symbolic scenes. Sometimes it relates to the crises of the Israeli government and its need for an internal mobilization discourse. At other times, the goal is to preempt any Palestinian or regional movement by proving the upper hand in Jerusalem. Therefore, there is no single fixed timing, but the rule is that Al-Aqsa is constantly used as an arena for testing, messages, and imposing facts.
Here lies the danger of the current stage. When the most extremist right-wing government meets with groups that consider Al-Aqsa the center of their ideological project, and with an international environment that is helpless or complicit, the danger of moving from repeated incursions to deeper changes becomes a real, not a hypothetical danger.
Al-Aqsa does not need a passing season of anger, but rather a political and popular vigilance that guards the meaning before the stone. Every time the question of why Al-Aqsa incursions recur is raised, the answer must be the beginning of an action, not the end of a discussion, because Israel always bets on time, while protecting the holy sites begins from breaking this bet.