As half a century has passed since the attempt by Jewish extremist Michael Dennis Rohan to burn down the Aqsa Mosque, the flames are still engulfing the Islamic holy site.

On the eve of this painful anniversary, which is commemorated on August 21, the flames were raging at the Aqsa Mosque, which is still exposed to daily violations against its Islamic sanctity by Israeli forces and settlers.

The Israeli occupation police recently escalated their aggression against the Aqsa Mosque through assaulting Muslim worshipers, Aqsa employees and Islamic Awqaf officials, and banning entry of many of them to the holy site. The latest Israeli assaults at the Aqsa Mosque happened on the first day of Eid al-Adha, August 11, when police forces brutally attacked Muslim worshipers following the Eid prayers and allowed dozens of Jewish settlers to defile its courtyards.

In remarks on this anniversary, Hanna Issa, head of the Islamic Christian Authority for Patronizing Jerusalem and Holy Sites, said the fires at the Aqsa Mosque did not start on August 21, 1969, but when the Israeli occupation forces invaded east Jerusalem on July 7, 1967 and destroyed al-Maghariba neighborhood.

Issa affirmed that the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, especially the Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, had since faced many fires, adding that the entire world did not recognize Israel’s occupation of west Jerusalem in 1948 and its occupation of east Jerusalem in 1967.

“Israel has persisted in its violations against the Aqsa Mosque and the holy city since 1967 and worked on Judaizing 97 percent of Jerusalem,” the head of the Islamic-Christian Authority said.

He noted that the Israeli attacks on the Aqsa Mosque increased when US president Donald Trump took office in 2017 and later declared Jerusalem a Jewish city, adding that Trump does not recognize the Christian, Islamic and Arab presence in the holy city.

He pointed to the presence of 105 synagogues around the Aqsa Mosque and a network of tunnels and an entire city built by Israel beneath and around it.

Issa also outlined Israel’s efforts to Judaize the holy city through seizing lands and property in the Old City, expanding the area of al-Buraq wall (western wall), revoking IDs of many Jerusalemite citizens, refusing to register 22,000 children as Jerusalemite citizens, and carrying out mass home demolitions.

He also warned of Israeli intents to enact laws aimed at dividing the Aqsa Mosque temporally and spatially as part of a comprehensive plan to obliterate the Arab Islamic-Christian identity of Jerusalem and giving it a new Jewish character.

For his part, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, head of the Higher Islamic Commission and Aqsa Mosque preacher, described Israel’s repeated violations at the Aqsa Mosque as “fires encircling it from all sides,” adding that the daily Israeli break-ins at the Mosque, the underground excavations and the separation wall surrounding Jerusalem are part of these fires.

The 1969 fire had destroyed nearly one third of the al-Qibli Mosque with the grey dome, including the ancient wood and ivory pulpit that was brought by conqueror Salahuddin al-Ayyubi from the Syrian city of Aleppo.

The blaze also destroyed the mihrab (prayer niche) of Muslim caliph Omar bin al-Khattab, as well as the decorated interior and the gilded wooden dome.

 

Source: The Palestinian Information Center