Urgent appeal to all Palestinians and believers to defend Al Aqsa

Urgent appeal to all Palestinians to defend Aqsa Mosque

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Preacher of the Aqsa Mosque Sheikh Ikrima Sabri issued on Sunday an urgent appeal to all Palestinians to be alert to the Israeli preparations to open a mythical synagogue tomorrow and head to the holy Aqsa Mosque to defend it by all means. In a statement, Sheikh Sabri warned that the hurva (ruin) synagogue is a prelude to the building of the alleged temple of Solomon on the ruins of the Aqsa Mosque, affirming that the story of this synagogue is fictitious and was made to pave the way towards the demolition of the holy Mosque. He noted that the higher Islamic council and Jerusalemite organizations issued a statement to call on all Palestinians at home to travel to the Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday to defend it against the dangers threatening it. The preacher highlighted that the Palestinians alone cannot stand in the face of the Israeli occupation, calling on all Arab and Muslim peoples and governments to support them in these critical moments. In a related development, Haaretz newspaper reported that the Israeli police deployed today reinforcements of 2,500 policemen in east Jerusalem in preparations for the opening ceremony to be held for the synagogue and tightened its restrictions on the entry of Palestinians to the Aqsa Mosque. The Israeli police had already deployed more than 3,000 policemen in Jerusalem. The newspaper quoted Israeli chief of police Dudi Cohen as saying that the Israeli police are ready and present throughout Jerusalem and will act in accordance to their assessment of the situation as well as intelligence information. For their part, extremist Jewish groups have launched a campaign of incitement against the Palestinians, Christians and Muslims, calling on them to leave what they claimed the land of Israel. In a statement they distributed on the streets of Jerusalem on Monday, the groups said that it was written in their Torah that the land of Israel is a small land, belongs only to the Jewish people and others are prohibited to live in it permanently. The statement blatantly called on Palestinians to leave Israel in order to ensure peace. In light of this serious Israeli escalation against Jerusalem and the Islamic holy sites in Palestine, the national and Islamic forces in the holy city called in a joint statement on citizens to continue their vigil at the Aqsa Mosque and visit it for prayers in preparation for any settlers' attempt to attack it. Their statement called for a general commercial strike for two hours on Sunday and today. For his part, Arab Knesset member Ibrahim Sarsour strongly denounced in a press statement the unprecedented Israeli escalation against Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque, warning that this escalation would explode the whole region and the world. Sarsour stressed that what is happening is a blatant Israeli attempt to impose a policy of fait accompli through ensuring a Jewish majority in east Jerusalem in order to make it impossible for Palestinians to demand Jerusalem as a capital of their independent state.

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