UN denounces desecration of Jenin mosque by Israeli troops
The United Nations has slammed the desecration of religious sites after a circulated video on social media showed Israeli soldiers performing Jewish rituals inside a mosque in the occupied West Bank.
“The desecration of religious sites should not be tolerated and is against common decency, to say the least,” Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the UN secretary-general, told reporters on Thursday.
He stressed that religious sites need to “be respected and cannot be perverted in one way or another.”
His remarks came after Israel’s far-right minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, shared a video showing Israeli soldiers performing Jewish rituals inside a mosque during a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.
The actions were also slammed by Turkey as “provocative”.
"We strongly condemn the provocations of Israeli soldiers who stormed the Jenin Refugee Camp, and disrespected the sanctity of a place of worship by entering the mosque," Oncu Keceli, a spokesman for Turkey's foreign ministry, said on X late on Thursday.
Ankara also called for perpetrators to be punished and for an end to the “settler terror”.
"In East Jerusalem [al-Quds] and the West Bank, where tensions are running extremely high due to settler terror and heavy pressure and attacks by Israeli security forces against Palestinians, we expect attacks on Muslim holy places to be ended immediately and those who perpetrate these provocations to be punished in the most severe way," Keceli added.
The Palestinian government also decried the Israeli raid on Jenin as a "dangerous escalation", warning that the desecration of the mosque by some Israeli troops fanned religious tension.
The raid on Jenin, which began on Tuesday, is the regime’s 15th incursion into the occupied territories since Tel Aviv launched its onslaught on Gaza on October 7. Palestinian authorities said 12 people were killed during the raid.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 18,787 Palestinians and injured 50,900 others.
Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble in Gaza, which is under “complete siege” by Israel.
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