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Police-backed Jewish Extremists Try to Storm Al-Aqsa
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An extremist Jew wounded in the clashes with Palestinians defending Al-Aqsa mosque. (Reuters)
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, June 6, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) –
Palestinians stood up Monday, June 6, to attempts by extremist Jews,
backed by Israeli police, to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque to mark Israel's
occupation of Arab East Jerusalem 38 years ago.
The
mosque’s esplanade was bustling with scores of Palestinians, who
descended on the old town late Sunday, June 5, to deter supporters of
the far-right Jewish groups Revava and the Temple Mount Faithful, who
have frequently been threatening to storm Islam’s third holiest
shrine.
Palestinians
Monday pelted extremist Jews with stones and glass bottles, injuring
two of them and forcing the others to retreat.
Israeli
police forces then faced off against the Palestinians, firing stun
grenades and tear gas canisters, wounding at least five.
Palestinian
scholars, including deputy head of the Islamic Movement in Israel,
Sheikh Kamal Al-Khatib, appealed for calm and Israeli soldiers later
pulled out from the mosque compound.
Occupied
Jerusalem police spokesman, Shmuel Ben-Ruby, said Palestinians had
thrown stones at groups of Jews visiting the compound on
"Jerusalem Day", which marks Israel's seizure of East
Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, according to Reuters.
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Palestinian women, in front of the Dome of the Rock. (Reuters)
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Israel
Radio said local Muslim religious authorities had appealed for calm as
several hundred chanting Palestinians faced off against police and
waved green Islamic flags outside Al-Aqsa.
The
Israeli occupation army set up checkpoints around Al-Quds Sunday and
deployed dozens of forces, turning the holy city into a garrison.
It
further banned Palestinian worshippers under 40 from entering the
mosque.
Over
the past two months, thousands of Palestinians used to gather in and
outside Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to shield it against "malicious
attempts" to storm Al-Aqsa by extremist Jews.
Anti-Zionism
Jewish group Neturei Karta condemned last month the storming attempts,
urging the Jews of the world to reject the Zionist schemes
orchestrated by the “illegal” state of Israel.
‘Dire
Circumstances’
Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas, commenting on the incident, told reporters in
the West Bank Monday that visits by right-wing Jews to the holy site
could have “dire circumstances,” Reuters news agency reported.
In
the Gaza Strip, a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad resistance group
said any harm to Al-Aqsa would be met with “martyrdom operations,
rocket firings, infiltrations and bombings.”
The
second Palestinian Intifada erupted in September 2000 after Sharon,
Israel's opposition leader at the time, toured the compound.
Palestinian
experts warned last month that threats by Jewish extremist groups to
storm the mosque had a more serious religious undertone as they
believe that 2005 was the year for the construction of the so-called
third temple.
They
said that such groups are “fed
on Zionist and racist ideologies stemming basically
from the right-wing and took, over the years, the shape of armed
gangs, which work covertly and overtly.”
Al-Haram
Al-Sharif, which includes Al-Aqsa Mosque, represents the heart of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict because of its religious significance for
Muslims.
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Abbas warned of “dire circumstances” if extremist Jews stormed Al-Aqsa. (Reuters)
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Jews
claim that their alleged Haykal (Temple of Solomon) exists underneath
Al-Haram Al-Sharif which was the first qiblah (direction Muslims take
during prayers).
Palestinian
and Jordanian archeologists have warned that ongoing Israeli
excavations have weakened the foundations of the mosque, cautioning it
would not stand a powerful earthquake.
A
part of the road leading to one of the mosque’s main gates collapsed
in February last year due to the destructive Israeli digging work.
Reports
said earlier in the week that Israeli-backed Jewish extremists are
building a religious city under Al-Aqsa.
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