Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared that the renewed violence and tensions between Israel and Palestine amid the Israeli government’s plans to revise the status quo at Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem may change the long-standing conflict into a religious struggle, Sputnik News informs.
"The violations committed by settlers and extremists protected by the Israeli occupation forces against our Christian and Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem … this will change the conflict from a political conflict into a religious one, this will have grave consequences on all," Abbas said in his address to the UN Human Rights Council.