On the 8th, local time, Israel's national security minister, Ben-Gewil, entered the area of the Aksa Mosque in the old city of Jerusalem.

On the same day, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) issued a statement stating that on 8 October, the 35th anniversary of the first massacre of the Aksa Mosque in 1990, Ben-Gewil's actions were a deliberate signal of aggression, an attempt to strengthen the occupation control of the Aksa Mosque. Jerusalem and the Aksa Mosque are an insurmountable red line, and the Palestinian people will uphold their pledge to defend their rights and the dignity of the Holy Land by all legitimate means.

The Aksa Mosque is located in the old city of Jerusalem, where Muslims refer to it as the ¡°Dignity of the Forbidden Land¡± and Israel calls it the Temple Mount. Ben-Gewil has previously been high-profile in the area and has been condemned by the UN, the European Union, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation and many other Arab countries.