A day of rage in al-Khalil (Hebron) in defense of the Ibrahimi mosque

[ 26/02/2010 - 10:26 PM ]

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)--

Violent confrontations broke out on Friday afternoon between Palestinian protestors and IOF troops in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil near the Ibrahimi mosque and in the southern part of the city.

Residents of  al-Khalil were protesting the Israeli inclusion of the Ibrahimi mosque on the list of Jewish heritage sites and to mark the 16th anniversary of the Ibrahimi mosque massacre, when an extremist American Jewish settler broke into the mosque during the dawn prayers and opened machinegun fire at Muslim worshipers killing 30 of them and wounding tens others.

Scores of Palestinian youth threw stones and set tyres alight closing the main road to block IOF troops who fired tear-gas and rubber-coated bullets at demonstrators.

More confrontations took place after the Friday prayers at the mosque when more than 3000 Palestinians participated in the protests.

More protests are expected on Saturday because of the intention of extremist Jewish settlers to enter the Ibrahimi mosque to commemorate the death of Barukh Goldstein who committed the massacre at hands of survivors who attacked him with fire extinguishers when he paused to load his machinegun with another magazine.

Israeli occupation occupation seeks to include 150 Palestinian sites on its Jewish heritage

[ 26/02/2010 - 06:35 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)--

The Christian-Muslim Committee for the support of Jerusalem and holy sites said that Israeli occupation authorities are preparing to submit a list of 150 Palestinian sites claiming they are traditional Jewish religious sites, including the Aqsa Mosque and the Church of Holy Sepulchre.

The committee said in a press statement that: "The list is secret and is directly linked to the Office of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, making it a serious political statement and a declaration of war on holy sites, heritage and history, in order to Judaize shrines after the land, and to obliterate the Arab Islamic identity."

The committee pointed out that the Israeli occupation "wants to submit the list at the meeting of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee which is scheduled for next October ," stressing that there are "no sacred Jewish religious sites in Palestine with the exception of some old synagogues, while the oldest of their claims refers to al-Buraq Wall which they call the Wailing wall despite the fact that no relationship between the wall and the Jews was recorded the sixteenth century AD, and Jewish worship took place at the wall before the seventeenth century, according to reliable information. "

The Jerusalem committee warned that the danger lies "in the Israeli endeavour to include Islamic and Christian holy sites in Palestine in the list, and the fact that the list is determined by the government at the highest level instead of the department of antiquities for example which makes this list a purely political one  based on falsification of facts to mislead the international community," the committee said noting that "the occupation today controls 75% of the Ibrahimi Mosque. "