Worshippers Flock to Al-Aqsa Mosque for Dawn Prayer

Hundreds of Palestinian worshippers converged on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem before sunrise on Wednesday to perform the dawn Fajr prayer, in what has become a near-daily demonstration of religious devotion and steadfastness at Islam's third-holiest site. Witnesses described large crowds streaming through the Old City's narrow alleys toward the sacred esplanade, with rows of worshippers filling the courtyards surrounding the silver-domed Qibli prayer hall and the golden Dome of the Rock. The pre-dawn gathering took place amid a heavy deployment of Israeli police at the compound's gates, where identification checks and selective entry restrictions remain a routine feature of access to the site for Palestinian Muslims. Despite the tightened security posture, attendance at Fajr prayers at Al-Aqsa has surged in recent years as part of a grassroots campaign by Jerusalemite worshippers and West Bank Palestinians, who view sustained presence at the mosque as a form of religious and national affirmation. Al-Aqsa, known to Muslims as Al-Haram Al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount, sits at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is administered under a long-standing custodial arrangement by the Jordanian-run Islamic Waqf. Under the status quo agreed since 1967, non-Muslim prayer is prohibited inside the compound, though repeated incursions by ultranationalist Israeli settlers under police escort have escalated tensions in recent years and drawn condemnation from across the Arab and Muslim world. Qatar has been among the most vocal regional powers in defending the sanctity of Al-Aqsa and the rights of Palestinian worshippers, with Doha consistently calling on the international community to halt Israeli violations at the holy site. The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs has on multiple occasions denounced settler raids and restrictions on Muslim access as provocative acts that risk inflaming the wider region, while Qatar continues to channel humanitarian and reconstruction aid to Palestinians through coordinated mechanisms. The Gulf state, alongside Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey, has repeatedly urged the preservation of the historic Hashemite custodianship over Jerusalem's Islamic and Christian holy sites. The dawn turnout on Wednesday underscored what Palestinian religious authorities describe as a deepening attachment to Al-Aqsa amid an extended Israeli military campaign in Gaza and intensified settler violence in the occupied West Bank. Worshippers interviewed at the scene by local Palestinian outlets said their presence at Fajr was both an act of worship and a message that the mosque would not be abandoned to encroachment. The Islamic Waqf is expected to release attendance figures later in the day.