Secretary-general of the commission Hasan Khater appealed to the Arab and Islamic worlds to stand by Jerusalem people and help them to confront the Israeli occupation's scheme aimed to expel them from their holy city.
In a press release on Saturday, Khater noted that there is no strategy for strengthening the Jerusalem people's steadfastness at the Palestinian official level, but the opposite is happening, where they are forced to work and live outside their city.
For his part, preacher of the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem Sheikh Jum'ah called on the Arab and Muslim nations and the world's free people not to forget Jerusalem which is exposed to daily Israeli massacres targeting its identity, history and indigenous people.
Sheikh Jum'ah noted that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) imposes heavy taxes on the merchants of Jerusalem and hefty fees on the natives who want to get building permits, while it builds thousands of settlement units for Jewish settlers in order to bring about a demographic change.
He added that the IOA is now besieging Jerusalem with settlements and outposts in order to Judaize it and separate it from its Palestinian surrounding.
The IOA has demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes, especially in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Shuafat, Issawiya districts resulting in the displacement of thousands of Jerusalemites, withdrew thousands of IDs from them, prevented religious and national figures from entering the holy city or the Aqsa Mosque, initiated a systematic campaign to obliterate Arab and Islamic landmarks and sites in Jerusalem, the preacher affirmed.
[ 24/04/2011 - 05:26 PM ]
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Arab Orthodox Institutions in Jerusalem has accused Israeli police of persecuting Christians and violating their right to perform religious rites on Holy Saturday as well as most of their holidays.
The group said in a statement on Sunday that Israeli police blocked Palestinian Christians from entering the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem as they tried to perform religious rites on the Christian Holy Saturday. They said police assaulted and hurled tear gas at Christians trying to enter.
The group said the behavior was “totally incompatible with the most basic human rights and conflicts with standard procedure followed for hundreds of years”.
“Israeli measures have been escalating year after year. The facilities authorities have promised to Christian Palestinians is formal and designed to absorb anger and local and international pressure,” the statement says.
The Arab Orthodox Institutions called on Christian and human rights institutions to intervene immediately to help stop Israel's repeated violations in Jerusalem and to exert serious and urgent efforts to guarantee the rights of Christian Jerusalemites to perform religious rites “with freedom and safety”.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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