Bahar urges Arab, Muslim countries to sever ties with Israel

February 11, 2007

Gaza - Acting PLC speaker and Hamas’ senior political leader Dr. Ahmad Bahar has urged Arab and Muslim countries with diplomatic and commercial ties with the Hebrew state to immediately sever those relations to protest the ongoing IOA destruction works at the Aqsa Mosque.

He also called on the Moroccan monarch Mohammed VI in his capacity as the head of the Quds committee to convene the committee in an emergency session to discuss the Israeli atrocities against the Mosque.“

Arab and Muslim countries are urged to swiftly act in defense of the Mosque and in inducing the international community to denounce Israel’s unwarranted excavation works at the Mosque’s walls”, Bahar said in a press conference on Saturday.

He also invited his Arab peers as well as Arab and Muslim parliamentarians to play an active role in encouraging their respective governments to carry out their religious duties towards the Aqsa Mosque and the occupied city of Jerusalem.

The role the Islamic Movement in the 1948-occupied Palestinian lands headed by Sheikh Raed Salah has and still is playing in defending the Aqsa Mosque drew wide commendation from Bahar as he praised the Movement’s efforts in defending and preserving Arab and Muslim identity of the Mosque.

Tens of thousands of the Islamic Movement supporters marched towards the Aqsa in a swift answer to calls from their leaders to block Israel’s “malicious” plans against the sacred Muslim shrine.

For his part, MP Ahmed Abu Halabeyya, the chairman of the Quds committee in the PA legislature, urged Arab and Muslim masses to hold massive demonstrations against the Israeli diggings.

But he stressed that international and human rights organizations across the world must also take decisive stands against what is going on at the Aqsa walls.

Tension across Palestine, particularly in the occupied city of Jerusalem, and Arab and Muslim worlds ran high over the diggings as more demonstrations are expected to be organized against Israel in those countries.

Israeli premier Ehud Olmert rejected a request tabled by his war minister Amir Peretz to halt the excavation works citing security concerns, and ordered the diggings to continue.