The Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) department for “Al-Quds affairs" warned about what it described as intentions by “settlers" to carry out the commandment of the Passover sacrifice on the Temple Mount during the upcoming Passover.
In a statement it published, the organization said these were systematic Israeli attempts to change the existing historical and legal status on the Temple Mount by using a religious narrative to justify a policy of establishing facts on the ground.
According to the PLO, far-right elements in the Israeli government are providing backing for moves intended to allow shared religious worship at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound (the Temple Mount) by Jews as well, and to hold ceremonies that it says contradict the “religious and historical character of the site."
The PLO stressed its false claims that the entire Temple Mount area is an exclusively Islamic place of worship and that decisions by the United Nations and UNESCO affirm this. Therefore, it said, any attempt to hold Jewish religious rituals there would constitute a blatant violation of international law.
In a recent weekly lecture, Yitzhak Barda, one of the leading rabbis of Tunisia, spoke in favor of ascending to the Temple Mount in accordance with Jewish law after ritual immersion and removing one’s shoes. He also called on the Israeli government to cancel existing restrictions there in order to allow the Passover sacrifice to be offered at its proper time already this year.