The occupation escalates its attacks on Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem

Occupied Jerusalem (ST): During the past two days, the Israeli occupation escalated its attacks on Palestinians in the occupied city of Jerusalem, by increasing  its military barriers to isolate neighborhoods and towns from each other, cut off communication between them, closed the Old City markets and restricted movement in them, while providing protection for hundreds of settlers to storm the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.

These attacks have increased the suffering of Jerusalemites whom the occupation is trying to forcibly displace  by looting their land and demolishing their homes and properties or seizing them and handing them over to settlers. While the international community continues its silence on the crimes of the occupation, the Palestinians continue to resist in defense of their land and existence. 

Jawad Siyam, director of the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, said in a statement to news reporter that the occupation deployed thousands of its members in the Old City of Jerusalem and on the roads leading to Al-Aqsa to prevent Palestinians from reaching the mosque, indicating that the systematic incursions into the mosque are part of the occupation’s plans to Judaize occupied Jerusalem and obliterate its Palestinian Arab identity.

Siyam pointed out that these incursions are no less dangerous than demolishing Palestinian homes and expanding settlement operations in the city to isolate it from its surroundings. The occupation threatened to demolish it in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and the towns of Al-Isawiya and Silwan.

Undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Religious Endowments Hussam Abu Al-Rub stressed that the escalation of the storming of Al-Aqsa, the assault on Palestinian worshipers and their arrest, and the shooting and poison gas bombs in its courtyards is a flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law, which guarantees freedom of worship, stressing that the Palestinian people will continue to struggle in defense of their identity, land and sanctities until the occupation is defeated.

The Director of Al-Quds International Center Hassan Khater indicated that the settlers’ incursions into Al-Aqsa under the protection of the occupation forces are increasing and expanding to include attacks on Christian and Islamic sanctities and on Palestinian homes and properties in the Old City and the rest of occupied Jerusalem’s neighborhoods with the aim of displacing Palestinians, changing the demographic situation and falsifying history, civilization and geography, stressing that all occupation attempts to implement its Judaization plans will fail and will not change the established fact that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the State of Palestine.

The Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, Mustafa Barghouti, warned of the danger of the occupation’s plans to Judaize occupied Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian sanctities, because it destroys any opportunity to establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

K.Q.