°®Âþµº

Israeli radicals stormed occupied East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday, witnesses said.

The dozens of raiding Israelis were protected by police during their incursion into the compound, the witnesses said.

The radicals infiltrated the site, considered the third holiest in Islam, in groups, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa cited local sources as saying.

Like other Muslim and Christian sacred places in East Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa is often targeted by Jewish extremists.

Many radical Israelis seek to either split the compound in terms of time and space available between Jews and Muslims or replace the mosque with a Jewish temple.

Palestinians view East Jerusalem, which Israel illegally annexed in 1980 after capturing it in 1967, as the capital of their future independent state.

Almost the entire international community rejects Israel's annexation and sovereignty claims over Jerusalem.

However, Israeli authorities and settlers have long sought to push Palestinians out of the city.

They wish to make East Jerusalem – the city's Palestinian sector – into an Israeli area, erasing its Muslim and Christian character along the way and replacing it with a Jewish one.

These attempts are commonly known as "Judaisation".

Across East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West Bank, there are 700,000 Israeli illegal settlers.

The construction and expansion of settlements are aimed at taking over Palestinian territory.

Settlements breach international law and are considered a key barrier to a workable two-state solution as they carve up Palestinian land.