Today marks the 56th anniversary of the occupation forces’ complete demolition of the Moroccan Quarter adjacent to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, leveling it to the ground, in a crime that began on the night of Saturday, June 10, 1967, at 11:00 PM.

Within four hours, the Israeli occupation bulldozers demolished the entire Moroccan Quarter, which has been known throughout history as one of the oldest quarters in Jerusalem. The total number of buildings destroyed at that time was 135 historical buildings.

After the entire neighborhood was demolished, only the Moroccan Corner remained, where a small group of Jerusalemite families of Moroccan origin live today, who experienced the demolition massacre, and a section settled in other areas of occupied Jerusalem.

The occupation demolished the Moroccan Quarter in three stages. It destroyed the houses and their surroundings in 1967, the Fakhriyya Zawiya complex in 1969, and removed part of the Bab al-Maghariba hill in 2007. The occupation also demolished the road leading to Bab al-Maghariba to prevent Jerusalemites from crossing, and the quarter became an empty square where Jews perform their “Talmudic” rituals.

The occupation built a wooden bridge with iron supports to facilitate the settlers’ raids, and then built a Jewish synagogue underneath it connected to a tunnel.

In 2012, the occupation removed a number of ancient stones dating back to the Ayyubid and Mamluk eras in the northern walls of Bab al-Maghariba Road, and emptied the dirt under the mihrab of the “Al-Afdal Ali bin Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi” mosque, which is the only remaining relic of the mosque after the demolition of the Moroccan Quarter, and is attached to the northern facade of the road.

The occupation is currently working on expanding the Mughrabi Gate with the aim of controlling the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and imposing temporal and spatial division by increasing the number of intruders.

Last year, the occupation authorities completed the construction of a new Judaization building that includes a Jewish synagogue, Torah schools, and parking lots for settlers’ cars, in the Moroccan neighborhood adjacent to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The building, which began operating in 2017, includes several floors near the Western Wall, to accommodate the largest number of settlers who storm the area.