Israel Demolishes Historical Fence in Jerusalem

Israeli soldiers check a wheelchair bound Palestinian man during a military operation in the Old City in the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday. (EPA)

by Mohammed Mar’i

RAMALLAH, West Bank, 5 October 2007 — Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, strongly denounced the Israeli demolishing of an Islamic archaeological fence adjacent to the fountain of Sultan Suleiman Al-Qanoni, near Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound which was constructed 491 years ago.

Hussein said that this “assault” on such antiquity comes within the framework of a scheme prepared by the Israel to judaize places of worship and Islamic antiquities, pointing out that the Israeli authorities put some Jewish stones in the area in an attempt to conceal Islamic monuments and antiquities as a prelude to erase the history of the holy city and its Islamic character.

The mufti also revealed that the Israeli authorities are carrying out demolition works against the antiquities of the Umayyad state era and excavations in the road to the Magharba gate and other assaults on Islamic antiquities.

Hussein called on the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to assume their responsibilities toward the protection of Islamic and historical antiquities in Jerusalem. He also revealed the existence of more than 70 outposts for Jews inside the Old City of Jerusalem which does not exceed one square kilometer.

In another development, the Arab member of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) Mohammed Barakeh accused the Israeli internal intelligence agency Shin Bet of extorting sick Palestinians from Gaza Strip into spying for them.

The Israeli daily Ma’ariv said that the Shin Bet used several means used in exploiting, trapping, and recruiting the sick Palestinians. “The news reports indeed add more evidence to that I have on my desk on the inhuman and unjustified methods used by the Shin Bet in extorting sick Palestinians from Gaza Strip seeking medication in the West Bank or inside the 1948-occupied Palestinian lands to recruit and employ them as spies,” Barakeh wrote in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

He affirmed that he personally witnessed a case wherein the Israeli soldiers blocked sick Palestinian child from proceeding to the hospital despite his bad health condition at the Beit Hanon crossing point, north of Gaza Strip. “These are war crimes on the part of the Israeli soldiers that are added to the war crimes they had been committing against the Palestinian people over the past six decades with full support of the successive Israeli occupation governments,” he added in his protest letter.

He also criticized the “lame Israeli security pretexts” to justify such crimes against the sick Palestinians saying, “No excuse could justify denying a sick person proper and fast medical attention.”

In an interview with Ma’ariv, several Palestinian cases complained that the Israeli intelligence officers stationed at the crossings on borders between Gaza Strip and Israel had asked them to collaborate with the Shin Bet in exchange for granting them an exit permit to seek medication outside Gaza. According to Ma’ariv, the Shin Bet threatened that any Palestinian refusing to collaborate with the agency will be banned from proceeding for medication regardless of his health condition.

A bomb exploded near a vehicle carrying members of a Hamas security force in the Gaza Strip early yesterday, injuring at least three people, Hamas officials and medical workers said. Hamas officials said the Gaza City blast appeared to have been caused by a roadside bomb aimed at a Hamas patrol. The three injured were members of Hamas’ Executive Force.

Later yesterday, Israel carried out an airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip, an army spokesman said. The missile missed its target, a car carrying gunmen, but injured three civilians nearby, the Islamic Jihad militant group and medical officials said. The early morning roadside bombing that injured three Hamas men could stoke tensions between the Islamist group and Fatah.

On Wednesday, Hamas ordered the temporary closure of the main Fatah headquarters in the Gaza Strip, citing security reasons. Hamas said the headquarters was located near where a car exploded on Tuesday night, killing three Fatah members.