Several days before the events of the massacre began, the "Temple Trustees" group distributed a statement to the media on the occasion of a religious festival of theirs which they call "the Throne Festival". In the statement the organization announced that it intended to stage a march to the Temple Mount (or so they call it). The statement called upon Jews to participate in this march since, according to the statement, it would involve the decisive act of placing the foundation stone for what is called "the Third Temple." In addition, the founder of the organization, Ghershoun Salmoun, announced that "the Arab-Islamic occupation of the temple area must come to an end, and the Jews must renew their profound ties to the sacred area." The march, in which 200,000 Jews took part, headed toward al-Aqsa Mosque in order for "the foundation stone" of the so-called "Third Temple" to be put in place.

On Monday, October 8, 1990 at 10:00 A.M., half-hour before the beginning of the massacre, Israeli occupation forces began placing military barriers along various roads leading to Jerusalem in order to prevent Palestinians from getting to the city. They also closed the doors of the mosque itself and forbid Jerusalem residents to go in. However, thousands had already gathered inside the mosque before this time in response to calls from the imam of the mosque and the Islamic movement to protect the mosque and to prevent the "Temple Trustees" from storming it.

When the Muslim worshippers began resisting the Israeli group to prevent them from placing the "foundation stone" for their so-called temple, Israeli occupation forces began carrying out the massacre, using all the weapons such as poison gas bombs, automatic weapons, military helicopters, etc. The soldiers and Jewish settlers where firing live ammunition in the form of a continuous spray of machine-gun fire. The result was that thousands of Palestinian worshippers of various ages found themselves in a mass death trap. Twenty-three Palestinians were killed, and 850 others were wounded to varying degrees. The Israeli soldiers began firing at 10:30 A.M. and stopped 35 minutes later.