Shaikh Al-Tamimi Warns Israeli Settlements, a Threat to Jerusalem and its Holy Sites

Shaikh Al-Tamimi Warns Israeli Settlements, a Threat to Jerusalem and its Holy Sites?

Tamimi: Israeli settlements, a threat to Jerusalem and its holy sites?

Thursday March 26, 2009 12:04 by IMEMC News

Islamic Chief Justice, Sheikh Taiseer Tamimi, stated on Thursday that the Israeli attacks against Palestinian homes and holy sites in Jerusalem, and the construction of Jewish settlements is an Israeli act that aims at emptying the holy city from its Arab population.

He added that settlements are “swallowing the city and its holy sites”, and that the settlement outpost in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood is one of the Israeli plans to force the Arab residents out.

Sheikh Tamimi added that Israeli settlers occupied five Palestinian homes three years ago and transformed them into a settlement outpost, adjacent to a Muslim site known as Al Sheikh Al Saa’dy.

He also said that the settlers intend to connect this outpost with another outpost known as Me’a Sh’arim.

The Sheik stated that the settlers already established seventeen illegal outposts attached to the Old City in the area between Sheikh Jarrah and Me’a Sh’arim.

“This is a chain of illegal settlements inside the Old City”, he added.

As for the planned settlement neighborhood in Abu Dis, in East Jerusalem, Sheikh Tamimi said that this settlement aims at blocking any geographical contiguity between the Old City and the East Jerusalem towns of Al Ezariyya (Bethany) and Abu Dis, in addition to creating a chain of settlements around Jerusalem.

Furthermore, Tamimi said that the Israeli government and the Jerusalem municipality are imposing high fines on the Palestinians, demolishing their homes, confiscating their lands and their Jerusalem identity cards, and are ongoing with their plans to remove the Palestinians from the Holy City.

He stated that Jerusalem is the capital of the future Palestinian state, the religious, political and spiritual capital of Palestine.

“It is part of the Palestinian territories illegally captured by Israel in 1967”, he said, “yet, Israel is ongoing with its violations against Muslim and Christian holy sites”.

Sheikh Tamimi explained that Israel wants to wipe out the Palestinian and Arab history, especially the Al Aqsa Mosque, and added that the Israeli acts violate the international law as Israel refuses to deal with East Jerusalem as part of the Palestinian territories it captured in 1967.

He called on the international society and the UN to act in accordance to their historic and humanitarian responsibilities towards Jerusalem and its holy places.

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