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FUTURE OF AL AQSA and AL QUDS
#61
EVERY MOVE OF THE ISRAELI ZIONIST CRIMINAL SETTLER  STATE CAN ONLY BE DESCRIBED AS PURE UNADULTERATED EVIL . FIRSTLY THEY DENY THE ACTIONS OF AN ELITE ISRAELI ZIONIST SNIPER SQUAD TARGETTING THE AL JAZEERA REPORTER BY ASSASSINATION. A TV REPORTER WHOSE ONLY CRIME WAS DOING HER JOB TO REPORT ON THE WAR CRIMES AGAINST HER PEOPLE BY A CRUEL OPPRESSIVE FORCE. THEN THEY VIOLENTLY ATTACK THE PALLBEARERS TAKING THE MARTYR'S COFFIN FROM AN OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM HOSPITAL.

WHILST THE AMERICAN, EUROPEAN AND VATICAN BACKERS OF THIS EVIL ENTITY  STAND PROUDLY BY THEIR UNCONTROLLED MONSTER. WHEN NATURAL JUSTICE DESCENDS ON THIS EVIL FORCE IT WILL ONLY REAP WHAT IT HAS SOWN. IT HAS ONLY ONE WAY TO GO AND THAT IS DOWN. THIS IS ANOTHER REMINDER THAT THIS EVIL DAJALLIC DEMONOCRATIC ENTITY IS DIGGING IT'S OWN GRAVE DEEPLY AND WIDELY.


ISRAELI FORCES ATTACK MOURNERS CARRYING CASKET OF ABU AKLEH

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#62
QUDS DAY
Tens of thousands march in solidarity with Palestinians


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#63
MAY 29TH 1967 MAYBE A DAY THAT ZIONISTS CELEBRATE IN THEIR VICTORY IN THE 1967 6 DAY WAR IN CONQUERING JERUSALEM.  BUT IT IS ALSO THE DAY MUSLIMS CELEBRATE IN MAY 29 1453 WHEN THERE WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST DAYS IN MUSLIM MILITARY HISTORY WHEN CONSTANTINE WAS OPENED BY SULTAN MEHMET FATIH AND ENDED BYZANTINE RULE AND REPLACING IT WITH OTTOMAN RULE EVER SINCE. THE INTERPLAY OF THE FUTURE DESTINY OF QUDS AND CONSTANTINA  IS NOT OVER AND NEEDS REVIEWING.









FAR RIGHT ISRAELI ATTACKS HIGHLIGHT JERUSALEM DAY REALITY
Ultra-nationalist Israelis violently confronted Palestinians both during and after the ‘flag march’ on Sunday.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/30...ay-reality



ULTRA NATIONALIST JEWS STORM AL AQSA AHEAD OF ISRAELI FLAG MARCH
Thousands of Israeli police deployed ahead of the annual march in occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/29...flag-march



ISRAEL APPROVES FAR RIGHT MARCH IN OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/18...-jerusalem


WHY IS EAST JERUSALEM’s DAMASCUS GATE A HOTSPOT
FOR TENSIONS ?
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/...ascus-gate



AL-AQSA MOSQUE :
FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/...ed-to-know



CAN 'STATUS QUO' OF JERUSALEM'S OLD CITY BE PRESERVED?








WHY ISRAEL’s DOOMSDAY NATIONALISTS WANT TO DESTROY THIS





WHAT IS THE ISRAELI ULTRA NATIONALST ‘FLAG MARCH?




JERUSALEM: EXISTENCE IS RESISTANCE 



BAIT AL MUQADDAS MODEL IN AFGHANISTAN




Allah ky Azaab Ka Ishara Hogya Anqreeb in ky Sath Kya Hony Ja Rha hy




FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO DELHI
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#64
TIME TO REVIVE THE MEMORY OF SHAM AS WORLD WAR  RISES ON THE HORIZON ONCE AGAIN. TIME TO CHART OUT THE FORTHCOMING TRAJECTORY.









WWI THROUGH ARAB EYES   Episode 1





PALESTINE 1920:
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PALESTINIAN STORY 




HOW ZIONISTS CAME TO PALESTINE UNDER BRITISH PROTECTION 



LOST CITIES OF PALESTINE : HAIFA, NAZARETH AND JAFFA



AL-NAKBA : 70 YEARS OF EXILE




HOW DID THE NAKBA HAPPEN ?




AL-NAKBA: THE PALESTINIAN CATASTROPHE 












AL-NAKBA DEBATE  


THE WAY OF PALESTINE WILL BE THE WAY OF THE WORLD
https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZO40ADYtXyFW/

Palestinian ambassador Husam Zomlot wants ‘clear commitment from UK to fix the mess created here'





ISRAEL-TURKEY AND THE FALL OUT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
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#65
WHO IS ITAMAR BEN GVIR ?
AND WILL HE BE ISRAEL's NEXT KINGMAKER ?





WHAT WILL A NETANYAHU RETURN MEAN FOR ISRAEL?







THE NEW JEWISH STATE IN THE LEVANT :
A FANATICS LED NUCLEAR POWER
Israel is about to get the most extreme government in the country’s history. But there are limits to what it can do.

Marwan Bishara
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/...lear-power

Israel’s colonial democracy has given birth to a potentially more extreme type of ‘Jewish state’ akin to a more sophisticated and modern version of the ‘Islamic state’. But unlike ISIL which was conceived in and defeated by war, Israel is the only nuclear power in the Middle East today.

The fanatics, fascists, and far-right fantasists, who won this week’s elections in Israel, are about to form the most openly extreme government in the country’s history. It is sure to include the Jewish state’s new rising star Itamar Ben-Gvir — a violence-spewing, Palestinian-hating radical on whose support the government will stand.


A majority of religious nationalists and ultraorthodox parties in government, the first in Israel’s history, would want to transform the Jewish state towards a theocracy that lives by the Halacha (Jewish law) and finish colonising the entirety of Palestine, come what may.
But could they? What can they do in reality that their predecessors have not done already, in terms of exacting death and destruction, and further expanding the illegal Jewish settlement in Palestine?

Benjamin Netanyahu, who will likely form and lead the new coalition government, knows from his experience as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister that there is a limit on how far Israel can go before it starts to meet fierce Palestinian and Arab resistance. Any further, and Israel could also lose support in Europe and the United States; support that is indispensable to its security and regional standing.

He has previously preferred incremental steps to radical measures that could alienate Israel’s main backers and its new regional partners. Netanyahu may therefore try to curb his partners’ eagerness to annex the occupied West Bank and ethnically cleanse it of its Palestinian inhabitants.

But then again, it is doubtful whether he will be able to tame these religious fanatics, knowing all too well they have a hold over the survival of his premiership; his only guarantee to stay out of prison, after having been indicted for serious corruption charges. I think the genie is finally out of the bottle.

The elections have opened a Pandora’s box that may well take Israelis to the dark side. They have exposed the fragility of Israel’s peculiar liberality as a colonial state, and unmasked the pervasive fanaticism among the majority of the electorate after decades of unfettered military occupation.

The unruly pronouncements of Netanyahu’s scandalous new partners reflect the prevailing beliefs among the majority of Israel’s right-wing parties, including his own Likud, that have ruled the country for the past few decades. But now that they are boasting of Jewish supremacy out in the open, it is harder for Netanyahu’s hasbara to conceal their — or his — racism from the rest of the world.


After all, it was Bibi, as Netanyahu is known, who back in August midwifed the union of two or three small fanatic parties, to ensure they maximise the number of their seats and join his future coalition government. They did exceedingly well: The Religious Zionist Party won 14 seats. Its legislators include Ben-Gvir.


Netanyahu’s two other coalition partners, the ultraorthodox Jewish parties, Shas and UJT, which are as socially regressive and politically fanatic, won 18 seats. Together with the 32 far-right Likud members, they command a comfortable like-minded majority of 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset.

Emboldened by the new mandate, the ever-smug Netanyahu could skip the incremental strategy that he embraced thus far, in favour of a maximalist agenda. Domestically, that
could include him trying to control the judiciary and other levers of the state, and further marginalising Israel’s Palestinian minority. Regionally, it could involve annexing occupied territories and bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, at the risk of facing international backlash and a war.

But will he?
Perhaps the answer lies in his recently published autobiography, written with re-election in mind. In this 733-page monstrosity, Bibi: My Story, Netanyahu repeatedly underlines the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel’s security and the need to take it out once and for all, and insists on the marginality of Palestine for normalising relations with the Arab world.
Like a broken record, he repetitively dismisses the “centrality of Palestine” to resolving the Arab-Israel conflict, and condemns all forms of nuclear diplomacy and any type of normalisation of relations with Iran as naïve and reckless.

He makes it clear that he is unabashed Machiavellian; that he worships power — hard power — and believes superior military power is the only way to achieve peace or security. A cruel narcissist, he is ready to do anything and everything to stay in office, including betraying his closest allies and partners.

Like all populists, he is rather delusional and conspiratorial. Although he is the longest-serving prime minister in the history of the state, Netanyahu claims in the book that throughout his career, the elites, the press, the judiciary, and the deep state — even American presidents — have been out to get him.

Bibi, the book, is all about chutzpah: Where Netanyahu — the victim of countless conspiracies — tells tantalising tales about Bibi the victor and vanquisher of all living enemies, real and imagined. But since the book is rife with lies, exaggerations and other mischaracterisations, it is a sure bet he is lying about himself and his family too, leaving the reader to read between and beyond the lines.

In that way, one may deduce what this tenaciously ambitious political animal stands for, but it is difficult to discern who he is; the real from the fictitious, the hallow from the hollow. It is as if there is nothing really there; nothing beyond the carefully packaged character and cliches.
Lacking all empathy, he will not let anyone or anything get in his way. Experience does not humble Netanyahu. On the contrary: With each chapter, he becomes cockier and more confident, talking about himself walking among the greats, shuttling between Washington and Moscow, as if he is the prophet of Israel, leader of a superpower — as if he is invincible.

That state of mind, coupled with his new victory, may well entice Netanyahu to act ever more aggressively in Palestine, and towards Iran and the region, in order to get Israel to reign supreme in the Middle East.  As he sees it, the United States is stupid and President Joe Biden is amenable and weak; the Arabs are divided and their leaders are cynical; the European Union is preoccupied with Ukraine and Russia at war; and China is busy with, well, China.


But I have got news for Bibi and his “baboons” – as the opposition referred to his supporters. Any such overreach is an assured blunder that risks a major blowback militarily, politically and on other fronts. Palestine will always remain a sacred symbol of injustice to the Arabs and central to resolving their conflict with Israel, despite the fact that a few leaders have turned their back on Palestinians to appease Washington. And last but not least, hubris invites disaster; any bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities will only strengthen its regime and lead to a regional war with incalculable repercussions for Israel, the US and the Middle East. Always remember: The higher the rise the harder the fall.
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#66
DIGGING DEEPER INTO THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JORDAN AND THE HOLY LANDS IN END TIMES. MUST READ TO UNDERSTAND HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY REALITIES.  






KEYS TO JERUSALEM
This book seeks to provide a brief overview of the history and religious significance of the Holy City of Jerusalem as a background to understanding the current legal and political status of the city.

https://rissc.jo/wp-content/uploads/2018...lem-EN.pdf
https://rissc.jo/keys-to-jerusalem/


THE HASHEMITE CUSTODIANSHIP OF JERUSALEM's
ISLAMIC AND CHRISTIAN HOLY SITES 1917–2020 CE
https://rissc.jo/the-jerusalem-whitepaper
https://rissc.jo/wp-content/uploads/2020...Ed_web.pdf

WHY SHOULD MUSLIMS VISIT AL MASJID AL AQSA?  
Dr Wasfi Kailani

https://rissc.jo/wp-content/uploads/2018...ailani.pdf


THE HOLY SITES OF JORDAN
https://rissc.jo/docs/turab/The-Holy-Sites-of-Jordan.pdf


THE PAPERS OF AL -SHARIF HUSSEIN BIN ALI
https://rissc.jo/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/The-Papers-of-al-Sharif-Hussein-bin-Ali-ebook.pdf
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#67
ICC MUST INVESTIGATE AL -AQSA MOSQUE INCURSIONS
https://aohr.org.uk/webinar-stop-the-isr...sa-mosque/
 
 
Today, December 8, 2022, Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) via its legal team headed by Professor William Schabas. The complaint was about the systematic attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque at the hands of politicians, soldiers, and settlers, aimed at changing the current reality and building the so-called Temple.
 
This complaint was submitted after decades of various crimes being committed in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque at the hands of the Israeli occupation, which has never been held accountable for any crimes. It is worth noting that crimes are expected to increase following the Israeli elections of MPs who are keen on building the Temple and legitimizing current outposts, as well as building new settlements.
 
According to the complaint, Al-Aqsa Mosque has always been targeted by Temple groups supported by successive Israeli governments, with the aim of building the Temple in its place.
 
Successive Israeli government have been issuing decisions for daily incursions, which has been taking place under the protection of the IOF. These incursions also included attacks on worshippers, preventing them from praying, banishing them from Al-Aqsa Mosque, and firing live bullets and gas canisters at them.
 
The complaint emphasised that Al-Aqsa Mosque is a place of worship purely for Muslims. This was based on historical facts and dozens of international resolutions confirming that Al-Aqsa Mosque, with all its buildings, walls, courtyards, and annexes above and below the ground, as well as endowments on it, and the fenced land with its walls on the four sides surrounding it, of 144 dunum (a dunum=1000 square meters), and its length of (491m) from the western side, (462m) from the eastern side, (310m) from the northern side, and (281m) from the southern side, all of which confirm the ownership of Arabs and Muslims of it alone.
 
In this context, Professor William Schabas stated that ‘the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has conducted investigations and successful prosecutions concerning the protection of religious sites and attacks on them. Such acts may fit within the definitions of crimes against humanity and war crimes and are, consequently, punishable under the Rome Statute.’
 
 
Schabas added ‘‘The information in the submission to the Court highlights the seriousness of the situation in Palestine, which has not received sufficient attention of the world. These issues are of great urgency as they could trigger violence. Prompt action by the International Criminal Court can have an important deterrent effect, as it may be used as a warning to those who seek to ignite aggressive confrontations’’
 
Testimonies of victims included in the complaint revealed the seriousness of the violations against Al-Aqsa Mosque. It provided that each time calls to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque by Temple groups arise, force is always being used by the IOF to vacate the Mosque and its courtyards, which turn it into battlefields, with live bullets being fired at the worshippers, of which many get killed or wounded.
 
The complaint pointed out that the Temple groups movement is growing in numbers, where dozens of organisations joined under its umbrella, and stressed that the movement is financed and supported at various political, security and military levels. On December 18, 2022, and under the new leadership, these groups will call for more incursions and violations against Al-Aqsa Mosque on Hanukkah Day.
 


The Palestinian people feel furious over the double standards' policy of the USA and the West in dealing with human rights violations practiced against them and in general, where Israeli perpetrators of crimes enjoy impunity, while others get sanctioned, arrested and prosecuted.
 
Mohamed Jamil, head of AOHR UK, stated that ‘this complaint urges the ICC and the international community to open investigations, prosecute perpetrators of crimes, and end the politically motivated incursions.
 
Jamil added that ‘Ben Gvir and Smotrich used the incursions, the support groups of the Temple, as well as settlers to achieve gains in the Knesset -which was the case- and it is difficult to envision how far they could go, using their position in the government, thus urging the international community to remain alert’.
 
The lack of actions by the international community and the lack of political will encourage the occupation to commit more crimes, while its perpetrators still enjoy impunity. Therefore, AOHR UK repeats its calls to the Public Prosecutor of the ICC, which is the only possible means to achieve justice for the Palestinians, to take the necessary measures to investigate the cases submitted before the Prosecutor General's Office.
 
Arab Organisation for Human Rights in UK

 
In this regard, AOHR UK invites you to participate in a webinar to shed more light on the complaint and discuss the possible legal ways to hold the occupation accountable for its practices against Al-Aqsa Mosque.

https://aohr.org.uk/webinar-stop-the-isr...sa-mosque/






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#68



ISRAEL’s BEN-GVIR ENTERS AL-AQSA:
WHY WAS IT SEEN AS PROVOCATIVE ?
The far-right Israeli national security minister had been warned by Israel’s former PM that his move would spark violence.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/3/israel-ben-gvir-enters-al-aqsa-why-was-seen-provocative-explainer




ISRAEL FAR RIGHT MINISTER ENTERS AL AQSA IN ‘PROVOCATION’
Palestinians and several Arab countries condemn Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit, which they fear is aimed at changing the holy site’s status quo.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/3/in-provocation-israel-far-right-minister-enters-al-aqsa-compound


JEWISH SUPREMACY IS STATE POLICY SAYS NETANYAHU
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230103-jewish-supremacy-is-state-policy-says-netanyahu/

American Jewish leaders are right to be worried. As Benjamin Netanyahu peels away at the façade that has maintained support for the occupation state within liberal Jewish constituencies in the US and elsewhere, they are discovering that their democratic image of Israel is but a figment of their imagination. Any remaining doubt about Israel's identity was erased last week when Netanyahu declared that the preservation of Jewish supremacy will be state policy.

"The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel," said Prime Minister Netanyahu at the head of the most extreme right-wing Israeli government ever. "The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria," he added in a series of tweets which outlined his policy priorities.

American Jewish leaders are right to be worried. As Benjamin Netanyahu peels away at the façade that has maintained support for the occupation state within liberal Jewish constituencies in the US and elsewhere, they are discovering that their democratic image of Israel is but a figment of their imagination. Any remaining doubt about Israel's identity was erased last week when Netanyahu declared that the preservation of Jewish supremacy will be state policy.

"The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel," said Prime Minister Netanyahu at the head of the most extreme right-wing Israeli government ever. "The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria," he added in a series of tweets which outlined his policy priorities.



According to the Palestinian legal centre Adalah, Netanyahu's declaration went further than the 2018 Jewish National State Law, which defines self-determination as unique to the Jewish people within the "State of Israel". Critics slammed the law as racist, because it denied the 20 per cent of Israel's population who aren't Jews the same rights as those granted to Jews. By declaring that the guiding principle of the new government is the preservation of Jewish supremacy in every inch of historic Palestine — "the Land of Israel" — including territories which are supposed to become a future Palestinian state, an Israeli prime minister has for the first time announced publicly that state policy in Israel will pursue the vision of Jewish extremists like the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. Although seen as a religious fanatic, the views of the founder of the proscribed terror group the Jewish Defence League (JDL) have become mainstream in Israeli politics.



Unsurprisingly, Netanyahu's announcement provoked a backlash. Several Jewish leaders in the US warned Israeli officials that racist and extremist steps taken by the far-right government would greatly harm support for Israel from American Jews. Representatives of several mainstream US Jewish organisations which are said to be the "backbone of the pro-Israel community in the US" attended the meeting at which the warning was issued.


Jewish Voice Peace, a left-leaning US organisation, outlined the ramifications of Netanyahu's announcement. "The new Israeli government is making Jewish supremacy official," the group said on Twitter. "This means increasing Israel's displacement, harm and possible expulsion of Palestinians. More land theft, greater restriction of movement, increased imprisonment, and more surveillance and censorship."


JVL described the shift as a "brazen and horrifying effort to ensure the state of Israel protects Jews exclusively" and accused the new Israeli government of entrenching forms of settler colonialism and Jewish supremacy. "The Israeli government's commitment to and reliance on settler colonialism has been evident since its beginning," it continued, while labelling Netanyahu's remarks as the "clearest iteration" of Israel's practice of the crime of apartheid.


American academic Marc Lamont Hill, the author of Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics, also reacted to Netanyahu's comments. The former CNN commentator was fired in 2018 for a speech at the UN where he called for justice and equality in historic Palestine. "We have an opportunity to not just offer solidarity in words but to commit to political action, grassroots action, local action, and international action that will give us what justice requires and that is a free Palestine from the river to the sea," said Lamont Hill. Predictably, his comments were denounced as anti-Semitic by Israel and supporters of the apartheid state who called for him to be fired from his job at Temple University in Philadelphia where he is professor of media studies.

"In these remarks, Netanyahu is declaring ALL areas of historic Palestine to be Israel including the West Bank and East Jerusalem," added Lamont Hill. He shared Netanyahu's tweet while also appearing to compare reactions to the Israeli prime minister's remarks with his comments at the UN about establishing justice between the river and the sea. "He's claiming everything from the Jordan RIVER to the Mediterranean SEA. Is this a call to genocide? Is this a clear cry to eliminate Palestinians?" asked Prof. Lamont Hill.


He explained that his point about using the slogan "from the river to the sea" — a chant often heard at pro-Palestine rallies — was not a call for violence and remains, in fact, the opposite of what Netanyahu is calling for. It's hard to dispute Lamont Hill's claim. Israel was founded on the ethnic cleansing of three-quarters of the Palestinian population of Palestine and has maintained its domination of the territory through a brutal military occupation and violence. Indeed, the ethnic cleansing has never stopped. Further entrenchment and expansion of the same racist regime that subjugates non-Jews will only be feasible through yet more state terrorism and state-sponsored violence.


"I call for justice in all regions of historic Palestine," said the academic as he refuted the claim by one of his pro-Israel Twitter followers that the chant is anti-Semitic. In clarification, he said that he was pointing out how the same people who accused him of anti-Semitism are now silent when Netanyahu makes the same territorial statement in favour of Jewish supremacy.



Mark Lamont Hill is right to expose the double standards. No Western government or pro-Israel lobby group, including those which push the "two-state solution" — which Netanyahu's plan will kill forever — has said anything about the expansion of a regime of Jewish supremacy over every inch of historic Palestine. As my fellow MEMO columnist Yvonne Ridley argued at the time in Lamont Hill's defence, the pro-Israel lobby's ongoing efforts to weaponise anti-Semitism were dealt a major blow when Temple University resisted pressure to sack the professor. They and the many Western governments subsidising the apartheid regime of Israel have now suffered another blow. They have nowhere to hide from the hypocrisy of their unquestioning support for the occupation state.


APOCALYPSE IN PALESTINE :
THE RISE OF ISRAELI FANATICISM
Israel’s fanatics do not want a democratic state, they want a religious kingdom.
Marwan Bishara

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/1/30/apocalypse-in-palestine-the-rise-of-israeli-fanaticism

These straight-talking maniacs say what they think and do what they say. Their vision may be disastrous, even catastrophic, but their candour is refreshing in the way it exposes the myth of a secular, liberal and enlightened Israel. Say what you may about Israel’s ruling fanatics [url=https://www.aljazeera.com/author/marwan_bishara_201132512858571875]but listen carefully to what they say. Unlike their coalition partner, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they are blunt about their racism and bigotry.


One leading fanatic is Bezalel Smotrich, the head of the Religious Zionism party and Israel’s new finance minister. After a recording of him admitting to being a fascist became public in recent days, he retorted sardonically:  “I may be a far-right person, a homophobe, racist, fascist, but my word is my bond”.True that. And more.  He and his fellow zealots believe that: first, Israel cannot and should not be both Jewish and democratic; second, Israel has the exclusive right over all of what they call “the Land of Israel”, i.e. historic Palestine; and third, Israel should beware the ways of the liberal West, and reject American dictates or overtures.

Let us take these gems one at a time. Today’s fanatics lament the early Zionists’ failure to rid the “Jewish State” of all its Palestinian inhabitants. They believe their forefathers were right to evict hundreds of thousands of Palestinians back in 1947-1949, but wrong to allow for a small minority to stay behind, or allow it to grow in numbers and influence.

Rabbi Meir Kahane, the departed guru of many of today’s fanatics, argued in a 1980 book with the telling title, They Must Go, that the Palestinians are a “cancer” in the body of the “Jewish State” that must be removed by whatever means necessary.

His present-day disciples, like the minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, also believe Israel is better off without its Palestinian citizens, but they reckon if Palestinians must stay, then can only be second or third-class citizens, vowing total loyalty to their Jewish masters.

Unlike their political and ideological partner, Netanyahu, who helped pass the racist law “Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People” in 2018, but continues to peddle the debunked “Jewish and democratic state” cliché, Kahane’s followers boast of Jewish supremacy in the “Jewish State”.  Indeed, as Kahane himself put it, “Those who refuse to give the Arab that right but tell him he is equal think he is a fool. He is not.”Indeed, he is not.

Unlike the Jewish fanatic who believes Israel must be a theocracy or the foolish and delusional liberal who is convinced Israel could be Jewish and democratic, the Palestinian Arab knows Israel must be a true democracy in order to be at peace with itself and its neighbours.

This brings me to the second point. Like all other religious fanatics, Israel’s fanatics believe “the end justifies the means” when fighting for the almighty. This includes the forced reconsecration or Judaisation of Jerusalem and its holy sites, including Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, regardless of its catastrophic ramifications, peace and coexistence be damned.

Needless to say, there is “nothing novel about the victorious Jews’ takeover of sites sacred to the Muslims”, in the words of former deputy mayor of West Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti. If anything, the new fanatics are simply picking up where their Zionist elders left off, but with more religious zeal.Combining messianic Judaism with Israeli chutzpah, these fanatics are determined and they are dangerous. They are upfront about deepening the occupation, multiplying the illegal Jewish settlements, and eventually annexing them altogether, regardless of the consequences.

Unlike Bibi, the spin doctor, they feel no need to lie or justify their disinterest in diplomacy and peace with the Palestinians. Many wish for an apocalyptic end to this age to pave the way for the advent of the “kingdom of heaven”.It is no surprise then, that they reject international law and the entire peace process jargon about the two-state solution, which Israel’s Western backers continue to peddle, either foolishly or dishonestly.Which brings me to the last point. Unlike mainstream secular Israelis who are passionate about the American style of life, the religious camp rejects the influence of liberal America on Israel and its way of life.


These fundamentalists wish for a kingdom, not a republic. They want Israel to live according to Jewish law and tradition, not Western liberalism or universal values on issues of gender, sexuality and family.  Although they get enormous financial and other assistance from the United States, they believe Jewish redemption in the land of Israel must be biblical, not American or liberal. They also insist on subjugating the country’s rather liberal Supreme Court to the whim of the parliamentary majority they are part of.

No wonder, then, that secular and liberal Israelis oppose the fanatical forces in power, who, they believe, are “turning Israel into an insular, suspicious, and chauvinistic Sparta” – to quote Israeli journalist Ari Shavit’s book, My Promised Land. But most of them focus only on the government’s domestic agenda while ignoring the violent occupation.  That is selfish and shortsighted – indeed foolish.


Israeli fanaticism is the culmination of decades of war, occupation, and colonisation. Israel’s fanatics and fascists draw their force and fervour from their messianic mission in the occupied Palestinian territories, where they have expanded their power base at the expense of the Palestinians. To stop the fanatics, concerned Israelis, Americans and others must do all to end the colonisation of Palestine, first and foremost.    It’s the occupation, stupid.
Reply
#69
WHY ARE JEWS TURNING AGAINST ISRAEL AND TOWARDS PALESTINIANS?



ISRAEL’s LONG WAR BETWEEN THE GENERALS AND EXTREMISTS IS NOT GOING AWAY
Jonathan Cook


March 30, 2023: Information Clearing House

Israel edged closer to civil war over the weekend than at any point in its history. By Monday night, in a bid to avert chaos, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to put a temporary halt to his plans to neuter the Israeli courts.

By then, city centres had been brought to a standstill by angry mass protests. The country’s attorney general had declared Netanyahu to be acting illegally. Crowds had besieged the parliament building in Jerusalem. Public institutions were shuttered, including Israel’s international airport and its embassies abroad, in a general strike. That was on top of a near-mutiny in recent weeks from elite military groups, such as combat pilots and reservists.

The crisis culminated with Netanyahu sacking his defence minister on Sunday evening after Yoav Gallant warned that the legislation was tearing apart the military and threatening Israel’s combat readiness. Gallant’s dismissal only intensified the fury.

The turmoil had been building for weeks as Netanyahu’s so-called “judicial overhaul” moved closer to the statute books.

At the end of last week, he managed to pass a first measure, which shields him from being declared unfit for office - a critical matter given that the prime minister is in the midst of a corruption trial. But the rest of his package has been put on pause. That includes provisions giving his government absolute control over the appointment of senior judges and the power to override Supreme Court rulings

It is hard to see a simple way out of the impasse. Even as Netanyahu bowed before the weight of the backlash on Monday, the pressure began mounting on his own side.

Far-right groups launched a wave of angry counter-demonstrations, threatening violence against Netanyahu’s opponents. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the police minister and leader of the fascist Jewish Power party, initially vowed to bring down the government if Netanyahu did not press ahead with the legislation.

But in the end, his acquiescence to a delay was bought at a typically steep price: a National Guard will be established under Ben-Gvir’s authority. In practice, the settler leader will get to run his own fascist, anti-Palestinian militias, paid for by the Israeli taxpayer. 

Lack of democracy

Fancifully, coverage of the protests continues to frame them simplistically as a battle to save “Israeli democracy” and “the rule of law”. `

“The brutality of what’s happening is overwhelming,” one protester told the BBC. But if the protests were chiefly about democracy in Israel, the large minority of Palestinians living there, a fifth of the population, would have been the first on the streets.

They have a highly degraded form of citizenship, giving them inferior rights to Jews. They overwhelmingly stayed home because the protests weren’t advancing any conception of democracy that embraces equality for them.

Over the years, international human rights groups have slowly come to acknowledge this fundamental lack of democracy, too. They now describe Israel as what it always was: an apartheid state.

In fact, it is only because Israel lacks in-built democratic controls and human rights safeguards that Netanyahu was in any kind of position to bulldoze plans through for the judiciary’s emasculation.

Israel’s political system permits - by design - tyrannical rule by government, without decisive checks or balances. Israel has no bill of rights, or second chamber, or provision for equality, and the government can invariably call on a parliamentary majority.

The lack of oversight and democratic accountability is a feature, not a bug. The intent was to free Israeli officials to persecute Palestinians and steal their land without needing to justify decisions beyond a claim of “national security”. 

Netanyahu has not been trying to destroy “Israeli democracy”. He has been richly exploiting the lack of it. 

The only flimsy counterweight to government tyranny has been the Supreme Court - and even it has been relatively supine, fearful of weakening its legitimacy through interference and attracting a full-frontal political assault. Now that moment may be just around the corner. 

Culture war

A superficial reading of events is that the growing protests are a response to Netanyahu’s weaponising of the law for his own personal benefit: to stop his corruption trial and keep himself in power. 

But though that may be his primary motivation, it is not the main reason his far-right coalition partners are so keen to help him get the legislation passed. They want the judicial overhaul as badly as he does. 

This is really the culmination of a long-festering culture war that is in danger of tipping into a civil war on two related but separate fronts. One concerns who has ultimate authority to manage the occupation and control the terms of the Palestinians’ dispossession. The second relates to who or what a Jewish society should answer to: infallible divine laws or all-too-human laws. 

There is a reason the streets are awash with Israeli flags, wielded equally fervently whether by Netanayhu’s opponents or his supporters. Each side is fighting over who represents Israel.

It is about which set of Jews get to play tyrant: law by the generals, or law by religious street thugs. 

For decades, Israel’s military-security establishment, backed by a deferential secular judiciary, has set the brutal agenda in the occupied territories. This old guard is only too well-versed in how to sell its crimes as “national security” to the international community. 

Now, however, a young pretender is vying for the crown. A burgeoning theocratic, settler community believes it finally has enough muscle to displace the institutionalised power of the military-security elite. But it needs the Supreme Court out of the way to achieve its goal.

First, it views the security-judicial establishment as too weak, too decadent and too dependent on western favour to finish the job of ethnic cleansing the Palestinians - both in the occupied territories and inside Israel - begun by an earlier generation.

Second, the Supreme Court is certain to block the right’s efforts to ban a handful of “Arab parties” that run for the Knesset. It is only their participation in general elections that prevents a combination of the far-right and religious right from holding permanent power.

Unfinished business

Israel’s political tectonic plates have been grinding noisily together for decades. This is why the latest turmoil has echoes of events in the mid-1990s. That was when a minority government, led by a veteran military commander of the 1948 war, Yitzhak Rabin, was trying to drive through legislation supporting the Oslo accords

The sales pitch was that the accords were a “peace process”. There was an implication - though no more - that the Palestinians might one day, if they behaved, get a tiny, demilitarised, divided state whose borders, airspace and electromagnetic spectrum were controlled by Israel. Not even that materialised in the end.

The current upheaval in Israel can be understood as unfinished business from that era. 

The Oslo crisis was not about peace, any more than this week’s protests are about democracy. On each occasion, these moral posturings served to obscure the real power play. 

The violent culture war unleashed by the Oslo accords ultimately led to Rabin’s murder. Notably, Netanyahu was the principal player then, as he is now - though 30 years ago he was on the other side of the barricades, as opposition leader. 

He and the right were the ones claiming to be victims of an authoritarian Rabin. Placards at the right’s demonstrations even showed the prime minister in a Nazi SS uniform.

The political tailwind blew strongly enough in the religious right’s favour even then that Rabin’s murder weakened not the opponents of Oslo but its supporters. Netanyahu soon came to power and eviscerated the accords of their already limited ambitions.

But if the secular security establishment got a bloodied nose during the Oslo skirmish, the upstart religious right could not quite deliver a knockout blow either. A decade later, in 2005, they would be forced by Ariel Sharon, a general they viewed as an ally, to withdraw from Gaza.

They have been mounting a fightback ever since. 

Biding time

During the Palestinian uprising through much of the 2000s, following Oslo’s failure, the military-security establishment once again asserted its primacy. So long as Palestinians were a “security threat”, and so long as the Israeli military was saving the day, the rule of the generals could not be seriously challenged. The religious right had to bide its time.

But today’s circumstances are different. In power for most of the past 14 years, Netanyahu had an incentive to avoid inflaming the culture war too much: its suppression served his personal interests. 

His governments were an uncomfortable mix: representatives from the secular establishment - such as ex-generals Ehud Barak and Moshe Yaalon - sat alongside the zealots of the settler right. Netanyahu was the glue that held the mess together.

But too long in power, and now too tainted by corruption, Netanyahu has come unstuck. 

With no one in the security establishment willing to serve with him in government - now not even Gallant, it seems - Netanyahu can count only on the theocratic settler right as reliable allies, figures such as Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Netanyahu has already given both unprecedented leeway to challenge the security establishment’s traditional management of the occupation. 

As police minister, Ben-Gvir runs the Border Police, a paramilitary unit deployed in the occupied territories. This week he can start building his “National Guard” militias against the large Palestinian minority living inside Israel - as well as the “pro-democracy” demonstrators. No doubt he will make sure to recruit the most violent settler thugs to both.

Meanwhile, Smotrich has hands-on control of the so-called Civil Administration, the military government that enforces apartheid privileges for Jewish settlers over native Palestinians. He also funds the settlements through his role as finance minister. 

Both want settlement expansion pursued more aggressively and unapologetically. And they regard the military establishment as too craven, too deferential towards diplomatic concerns to be capable of acting with enough zeal.

Neither Ben-Gvir nor Smotrich will be satisfied till they have cleared the only significant obstacle to a new era of unrestrained tyranny from the religious settlers: the Supreme Court.

Theocratic rule

Were Palestinians - even Palestinian citizens of Israel - likely to be the only victims of the “judicial overhaul”, there would barely be a protest movement. Demonstrators currently enraged at Netanyahu’s “brutality” and his assault on democracy would have mostly stayed home.

The difficulty was that to advance his personal interests - staying in power - Netanyahu also had to advance the religious right’s wider agenda against the Supreme Court. That relates not just to the occupied territories, or even to the banning of Arab parties in Israel, but to Israel’s most fraught internal Jewish social questions too. 

The Supreme Court may not be much of a bulwark against the abuse of Palestinians, but it has been an effective limit on a religious tyranny taking over Israeli life as varieties of religious dogmatism grow ever more mainstream.

Netanyahu’s mistake in seeking to weaken the court was to drive too many powerful Jewish actors at once into open defiance: the military, the hi-tech community, the business sector, academia and the middle classes.



But the power of Jewish religious extremism is not going away - and neither is the battle over the Supreme Court. The religious right will now regroup waiting for a more favourable moment to strike.



Netanyahu’s fate is another matter. He must find a way to revive the judicial overhaul promptly if his young government is not to collapse.

If he cannot succeed, his only other recourse is to seek an accommodation with the generals once again, appealing to their sense of national responsibility and the need for unity to avert civil war.


Either way, democracy will not be the victor.
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#70
AL AQSA IS BEING TURNED INTO A WAR ZONE DURING RAMADAN AGAIN. THIS IS A HORRIFIC AND INTOLERABLE SITUATION NOT ONLY FOR BESIEGED PALESTINIANS BUT IT ATTACKS THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS OF MUSLIMS GLOBALLY.  THIS IS CLEARLY A RESULT OF JEWISH EXTREMISTS COMING TO  POWER IN THE LATEST ISRAELI GOVERNMENT. JEWISH EXTREMISTS AND HARDLINERS WHO SHOULD BE LOCKED UP IN ANY DECENT SOCIETY AND TRIED AS WAR CRIMINALS ARE NOW CALLING THE SHOTS FOR ISRAELI SECURITY MATTERS BODES ILL FOR RELATIONS BETWEEN ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS.

FURTHER TO LOOKING AT THE EVIDENCE IT IS CLEAR THAT THE ILLEGITIMATE ZIONIST ENTITY IS SEEKING TO CHANGE THE STATUS QUO AT AL AQSA. THE OCCUPATION FORCES ARE RESTRICTING ACCESS TO THE HOLY SITES AND UNDERMINING THE FREEDOM OF RELIGION OF PALESTINIANS. ALSO THEY ARE ARE BRUTALLY ATTACKING ORDINARY PALESTINIANS WITH DISPROPORTIONATE FORCE AND DAMAGING THE MOSQUE DELIBERATELY. 

SINCE THE 1967 WAR THERE IS AN AGREEMENT OR STATUS QUO IN WHICH THE HOLY SITE IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WAQF  BODY ADMINISTERED BY JORDAN. THEREFORE THE OCCUPYING ZIONIST ISRAELI STATE SHOULD NOT BE INTERFERING IN ANYWAY. YET DESPITE THIS THE ISRAELI MILITARY CONTROL ANY MOVEMENT OF PALESTINIANS INTO OR OUTSIDE OF JERUSALEM.  AS PART OF THE STATUS QUO JEWS ARE PERMITTED TO VISIT THE AREA BUT STRICTLY NOT TO PRAY THERE. YET ISRAELI FORCES ARE SEEN TO BE ESCORTING JEWISH ILLEGAL SETTLERS AND EXTREMISTS AND TURNING A BLIND EYE WHEN THEY PRAY THERE .  MANY OF THESE ARE ACTUALLY FOREIGN IMMIGRANTS FROM THE USA AND ELSEWHERE . IN THE CONTEXT OF COLONISATION, AN ILLEGAL OCCUPATION AND BRUTALITY METED OUT,  PALESTINIANS ARE VERY SENSITIVE TO VIOLATIONS HERE AS IT IS ONE OF THE FEW REMAINING SYSMBOLS OF THEIR IDENTITY AND NATIONHOOD.
       
OUTSIDERS NEED TO REALISE WHAT IS GOING ON HERE IS  REALLY LIKE NAZIS ON THE RAMPAGE. IMAGINE THE VATICAN OR NOTRE DAME OR ST.PAULS CATHEDRALS BEING OCCUPIED BY AN ALIEN OCCUPYING FORCE AND THEN VISUALISE THESE FORCES RESTRICTING ACCESS TO THE HOLY SITES AND THEN RAIDING THESE HOLY SITES AND BEATING WORSHIPPERS BRUTUALLY AND DAMAGING THE CHURCH.  THIS VIOLATES ALL CIVILISED BEHAVIOUR AND CAN ONLY BE DESCRIBED AS STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM AND NAZISM. IT IS BEING CONTINUED BECAUSE THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY HAS NOT INTERVENED AND THE ISRAELIS HAVE NOT BEEN MADE TO PAY THE PRICE. NO WONDER MANY MUSLIMS ARE FED UP WITH A BIASED HYPOCRITICAL MEDIA WHICH WHITEWASHES TERRORISM COMMITTED AGAINST MUSLIMS AND MUSLIM COUNTRIES.

THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THIS IS ALL GOING TO CHANGE SOON WITH THE COLLAPSE OF THE DOLLAR AND RISE OF A MULTIPOLAR WORLD. THEN WE SHALL SEE WHO CALLS THE SHOTS WITH THE INAUGURATION OF A JUST WORLD ORDER. THE INHUMANE ZIONIST ISRAELI ENTITY IS DIGGING IT'S OWN GRAVE.

IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT ARAB AND MUSLIM GOVERNMENTS   TO PRESSURISE THE EXTREME NATIONALIST ISRAELI GOVERNMENT NOT TO CROSS RED LINES.    EVEN MORE IMPORTANT IS THE NEED TO DEFEND PALESTINE AND PALESTINIANS. HOWEVER, IT IS CLEAR THAT INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION IS REQUIRED AND PALESTINIANS NEED TO REALISE THAT ONLY AN ISLAMIC LIBERATION OF THE HOLY LANDS CAN RESOLVE THIS EXISTENTIAL CRISIS.

THIS WILL MEAN THAT THEIR STRUGGLE FOR SELF DETERMINATION AND LIBERATION HAS TO BE 100% ISLAMIC. THEY NEED TO REALISE THAT PALESTINIAN AND ARAB NATIONALISM HAS FAILED TOTALLY TO DELIVER. INDEED RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW ARAB REGIMES ARE SUPPING WITH THE ZIONIST ISRAELI DEVIL IN NORMALISATION TREATIES INCLUSIVE OF EGYPT, JORDAN, BAHRAIN, UAE, SUDAN AND MOROCCO. WITH OTHERS AT VARIOUS STAGES OF DOING SO. SO THEIR OWN SIDE OR SHOULD IT BE THEIR OWN TRIBE ARE LETTING THEM DOWN.    

GIVEN THESE REALITIES IT LOOKS AS THOUGH ONLY AN GLOBAL ISLAMIC LIBERATION ARMY CAN COME TO THE RESCUE WHICH MOBILISES MUSLIMS GLOBALLY. THIS IS BECAUSE ALL THE EXISTING PLAYERS CAN NOT OR WILL   NOT DELIVER.   MAY THIS BLESSED RAMADAN 1444 WHICH THE ENEMIES OF ISLAM WANT TO BESPOIL BE THE HARBINGER OF THE NEW DAWN.






ISRAELI FORCES ATTACK WORSHIPPERS IN AL AQSA MOSQUE MOSQUE RAID 
Israeli forces fire stun grenades and arrest worshippers from inside the mosque, drawing condemnation from the Palestinians.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/5/...qsa-mosque

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXXvgvcr6gM

ISRAELI FORCES ATTACK PALESTINIAN WORSHIPPERS AT
AL AQSA MOSQUE DURING RAMADAN PRAYERS 



The Arab League is set to hold an emergency meeting to discuss an Israeli police raid on the
Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem that left at least 12 Palestinians injured, as Israeli Prime Miniser Benjamin Netanyahu said he was working to “maintain the status quo” at the holy site.

The Arab League meeting has been called by Jordan, Egypt and Palestinian officials, with tensions remaining high in Jerusalem since Israeli police attacked worshippers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound overnight on Wednesday, during the holy month of Ramadan.

The raids continued into the morning when Israeli forces were once again seen assaulting and pushing Palestinians out of the compound and preventing them from praying – before Israelis were allowed in under police protection.  The League had earlier condemned the attack, with Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit saying in a statement: “The extremist approaches that control the policy of the Israeli government will lead to widespread confrontations with the Palestinians if they are not put to an end.”   At least 400 Palestinians were arrested on Wednesday and remain in Israeli custody, according to Palestinian officials. They are being held at a police station in Atarot in occupied East Jerusalem.  Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces used excessive force including stun grenades and tear gas, causing suffocation injuries to the worshippers, and beatings with batons and rifles.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that three of the injured people were transferred to hospital. It also said in a statement that Israeli forces prevented its medics from reaching Al-Aqsa.The raids continued until Wednesday morning when Israeli forces were once again seen assaulting and pushing Palestinians out of the mosque compound and preventing them from praying, before Israelis were allowed in under police protection.“I was sitting on a chair reciting [the Quran],” an elderly woman told the Reuters news agency while sitting outside the mosque, struggling to catch her breath. “They hurled stun grenades, one of them hit my chest,” she said as she began to cry.


Israeli police said in a statement that they were forced to enter the compound after “masked agitators” locked themselves inside the mosque with fireworks, sticks and stones.  “When the police entered, stones were thrown at them and fireworks were fired from inside the mosque by a large group of agitators,” the statement said, adding that a police officer was wounded in the leg.In a statement issued later on Wednesday, Netanyahu said that he was trying to calm the situation at Al-Aqsa.

“Israel is committed to maintaining freedom of worship, freedom of access to all religions and the status quo and will not allow violent extremists to change that,” Netanyahu said.Tension has already been high in occupied East Jerusalem and West Bank for months. There are fears of further violence as important religious festivals – the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover – converge.

Al Jazeera’s Natasha Ghoneim said that the attacks were anticipated as there have been calls on social media urging Palestinians to come to Al-Aqsa and “defend it from the occupiers”.

A number of Jews are expected to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound during routine visiting hours of non-Muslims. “People who usually visit are nationalists with very conservative ideology and although the Jews are not allowed to pray inside the compound, their mere presence is a sensitive topic,” Ghoneim reported from occupied East Jerusalem.

Palestinian groups condemned the latest attacks on worshippers, which they described as a crime. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said in a statement “What happened in Jerusalem is a major crime against the worshipers. Prayer in Al-Aqsa Mosque is not with the permission of the [Israeli] occupation, but rather it is our right.  “Al-Aqsa is for the Palestinians and for all Arabs and Muslims, and the raiding of it is a spark of revolution against the occupation,” he added.

Palestinians pray as Israeli security forces take positions at the Al-Aqsa compound [Ammar Awad/Reuters] Jordan, which acts as custodian of Jerusalem’s Christian and Muslim holy sites under a status quo arrangement in place since the 1967 war, condemned Israel’s “flagrant” storming of the compound.Egypt’s foreign ministry, meanwhile, called for an immediate halt to Israel’s “blatant assault” on Al-Aqsa worshippers.

‘Unprecedented crime’
Confrontations at Al-Aqsa, the third-holiest shrine in Islam and the most sacred site in Judaism – in which it is referred to as the Temple Mount – have sparked deadly cross-border wars between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers in the past – the last being in 2021. Hamas condemned the latest raid as “an unprecedented crime” and called on Palestinians in the West Bank “to go en masse to the Al-Aqsa mosque to defend it”.

A Palestinian worshipper sweeps debris after a raid by Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. [Mahmoud Illean/AP Photo]  
After the violence at Al-Aqsa, several rockets were fired from northern Gaza towards Israel. The Israeli army said five rockets were intercepted by the aerial defence system around the city of Sderot in southern Israel and that four others had fallen in uninhabited areas.

Israeli planes attacked multiple sites in Gaza, striking targets at a “military site” west of the city and a site in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the centre of the strip, according to Al Jazeera’s Maram Humaid in Gaza. In Gaza, dozens of demonstrators took to the streets overnight, burning tyres.  “We swear to defend and protect the Al-Aqsa mosque,” the AFP news agency reported them as saying.

Palestinians see Al-Aqsa as one of the few national symbols over which they retain some element of control. They are, however, fearful of a slow encroachment by Jewish groups akin to what has happened at the Ibrahimi Mosque (Cave of the Patriarchs) in Hebron, where half of the mosque was turned into a synagogue after 1967. Palestinians are also worried about far-right Israeli movements that want to demolish the Islamic structures in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and build a Jewish temple in their place.
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