About 3,000 worshipers entered Al-Aqsa for morning prayers on Thursday after Israel lifted restrictions.
Posted on: April 9, 2026
Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, closed by Israel for 40 days, has reopened to Palestinian worshipers.
Footage seen by Al Jazeera shows Palestinians passing through the gates early Thursday morning. About 3,000 believers attended the early morning prayer meeting.
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Since the outbreak of the US-Israel war against Iran on February 28, access to Christian, Jewish and Islamic sites has been banned outright or restricted to only a few dozen believers. Israel often imposes restrictions, especially on Palestinian worshipers.
Occupied Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf department confirmed that Al-Aqsa’s gates would reopen to all worshipers from dawn. The Jordanian religious authority responsible for managing the mosque did not provide further details.
The previously released video showed volunteers and caretakers preparing to welcome worshipers and performing religious ceremonies in the yard and prayer room.
Israeli authorities announced the opening of the mosque and Church of the Holy Sepulchre in occupied Jerusalem on Wednesday evening.
Israeli police said the opening of the shrine was in accordance with “updated instructions from Israel’s mainland command.”
The statement said intensive security reinforcements, including hundreds of police officers and border guards, were being implemented in the alleys of Jerusalem’s Old City and roads leading to the shrines, aimed at “protecting visitors.”
Jerusalem and its holy sites have been under strict security measures and frequently closed due to the region’s war over the past six weeks.
The restrictions have reduced many people’s ability to celebrate Lent, Passover and Ramadan at the holiest sites of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
Authorities also banned Eid al-Fitr prayers at Al-Aqsa this year, the first such restriction since Israel occupied east Jerusalem in 1967.
But the ban on Orthodox Christians celebrating Easter was untimely lifted on Sunday, a week after Catholics and Protestants did so.
Raids on the occupied West Bank have not stopped
Israeli airstrikes continued throughout the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli forces detained a woman and assaulted a man during airstrikes in Nablus on Thursday morning.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry said separately that Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man Wednesday night near the village of Tayashir in the northern West Bank.
The Defense Ministry said 28-year-old Alaa Khaled Mohammed Sbeih was “shot dead” by Israeli forces, who said an off-duty soldier opened fire at a stone thrower.
Wafa said they raided the village of Tayasir and detained six young men, while in Ya’bad, south of Jenin, Israeli forces raided several houses at dawn and destroyed three. The army also raided the villages of Qusra and Awarta, but no arrests were made there.
Israeli military attacks continue in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, along with Israel’s wars against Iran and Lebanon.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said more than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the occupied West Bank since 2023, and at least 10,000 have been forcibly displaced.
