Israelis and Palestinians are bracing themselves for a tense and potentially violent week, with no sign of a ceasefire likely in Gaza and calls from Hamas for protest marches around the Islamic world to mark the start of Ramadan on Monday.
Earlier this month, a halt to hostilities before the Muslim holy month looked possible, but hopes have dimmed since indirect talks in Cairo ended without progress last week.
On Friday, President Joe Biden said a deal between Hamas and Israel was now “looking tough”, and when asked if he was worried about violence in Jerusalem, said, “I sure am.”
Every year, Ramadan shines a spotlight on Israel’s control of the raised compound in Jerusalem’s Old City known as al-Haram al-Sharif to Muslims and the Temple Mount to Jews, as hundreds of thousands of Muslim worshippers try to access al-Aqsa mosque for special prayers only performed during Ramadan. The mosque is the third-holiest site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. Almost adjacent to al-Aqsa mosque is the Western Wall, the holiest prayer site for Jews.
Police raids on the mosque in 2022 and 2023 were cited by Hamas as a reason for the 7 October attack, which it named “operation al-Aqsa flood”. The militant Islamist organisation is seeking to mobilise Palestinians and Muslims around the world over the issue of access during Ramadan.
In a video statement published on a Telegram channel on Friday, Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the military wing of Hamas, called Ramadan “the month of victory, the month of jihad”, and said the group was defending the honour of Muslims around the world in Gaza.
“We call our people to march on Jerusalem … to pray in the mosque … and to stop the occupation achieving its aims of controlling and dividing. Al-Aqsa mosque belongs to us.”
Earlier this month, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political chief in exile in Qatar, urged Islamist groups in the Middle East, many supported by Iran, to step up attacks on Israel during Ramadan, calling for a “broad and international movement to break the siege on al-Aqsa mosque”.
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s brutal attack on southern Israel in October, in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed. Hamas militants also took 250 hostages, around half of whom were released during a truce in November.
Israel then launched an offensive into Gaza that the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory says has killed at least 30,878 people, mostly women and children, and reduced much of the territory to ruins.
Last week, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told military cadets that Israel would press ahead with a threatened ground offensive on Rafah, the last place of relative safety in Gaza, possibly during Ramadan. Even staunch allies of Israel have warned that such an attack will lead to a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and could serve as a trigger for escalating violence.
Rafah is the southernmost city in Gaza and is crammed with about a million displaced people. It is also the entry point for much desperately needed aid and a logistical hub for aid agencies. Israel says most of Hamas’s leaders and remaining military forces are there, so their offensive cannot end until both are dealt with.
On Saturday, Biden said a potential invasion of Rafah was “a red line” for him, but added that he would never “leave Israel”.
“The defence of Israel is still critical, so there’s no red line I’m going to cut off all weapons so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them.”
In a sign on the increasingly strained relationship between the US president and his Israeli counterpart, Biden said in an interview with MSNBC that he believes Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” in his approach to the war, adding: “He must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken.”
Hugh Lovatt of the European Council on Foreign Relations said the advent of Ramadan had implications for the entire region: “There is an opportunity for Hamas to mobilise Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank around the perception that al-Haram al-Sharif is under threat … Violence on the holy esplanade can easily set off violence elsewhere, in the West Bank or even beyond Israel’s border, such as in Lebanon.”
The most likely immediate spark for protests, and possibly violence, would be the imposition of severe restrictions on prayers at al-Haram al-Sharif, observers say. But equally, the sight of crowds of Muslims praying unhindered would help ease tensions after months of conflict.
“If it is smooth and people see half a million worshippers in the mosque, it will calm things, but if people see blocks, checkpoints and Muslims having to pray in the road, it will be an alarm,” said Samer Sinijlawi, chair of the Jerusalem Development Fund NGO.
Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, caused uproar last month when he recommended to Netanyahu that even Israel’s Muslim minority, who make up about 18% of the population, be banned from the site this Ramadan. He was overruled and Israeli police have been told to limit numbers according to immediate security and crowd control criteria, with a review after a week.
Palestinians in the West Bank have been informally told that men over 60, women and children will be allowed through checkpoints to reach the holy sites during Ramadan. Since 7 October, few of the 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank have been allowed into Israel.
No restrictions will be placed on Israeli Arabs and residents of East Jerusalem, Israeli officials have said.
Sinijlawi, a resident of East Jerusalem, said: “Muslims will be meeting each other every day to pray and to sit around tables with pictures of what is happening in Gaza in their minds. In Ramadan such things have 10 times as much impact,” he told the Observer. “The weather is there. We are just waiting for the storm.”
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