Israel court decides to turn Rahma graveyard into Jewish garden

[ 18/03/2011 - 10:32 AM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- An Israeli court decided to convert part of the Palestinian graveyard, Bab Al-Rahma, in occupied Jerusalem into a biblical garden and prevent the Muslim Palestinians from burying their dead there.

This decision was taken after an extremist Jewish settler called Arie King filed a petition with the Israeli court claiming that part of this Islamic graveyard, near the Aqsa Mosque, was in the past a biblical Jewish garden.

Pressures from Zionist right-wing parties, the societies of Elad and Ateret Cohanim and the bureau of defending Zionist antiquities also contributed to this court decision.

Director of the Islamic waqf (endowments) in Jerusalem Sheikh Azzam Khatib reported that the Israeli police installed a number of surveillance cameras on the wall of Jerusalem’s old city, especially at the entrance to the graveyards of Rahma and Yusufiya.

Sheikh Khatib added that the camera used to prevent the Palestinians from burying their dead in the graveyards.

The total area of Rahma graveyard is about 23 dunums and it extends from Al-Asbat Gate, the northeastern entrance of Jerusalem, to the end of the Aqsa Mosque’s wall near the Umayyad Palaces in the southeast.
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