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Israel Enforces Permit Cap and Age Limits for First Ramadan Friday at Al-Aqsa

Checkpoint controls with a heavy police deployment left many West Bank worshippers blocked from entering Jerusalem.

Overview

  • - COGAT limited West Bank entry to 10,000 for the day, allowing only men 55 and older, women 50 and older, and children under 12 under conditional permits with digital documentation.
  • - Israeli police said more than 3,000 officers were deployed across Jerusalem as checkpoints tightened screening and documentation procedures.
  • - At Qalandiya, long queues formed and many were turned back, with Israel’s Channel 12 reporting roughly 2,000 crossings by morning despite previously issued permits.
  • - The Jerusalem Islamic Waqf reported about 80,000 worshippers inside the compound, far below pre-war Ramadan Friday turnouts that could reach into the hundreds of thousands.
  • - Palestinian leaders and groups, including Hamas, condemned the restrictions and urged mass presence, and days earlier Al-Aqsa imam Sheikh Mohammad Ali Al Abbasi was detained as the Waqf reported impediments to site preparations.