|
Jerusalem: Dozens of Israeli internal intelligence
service Shin Bet agents and Jewish worshipers Thursday stormed the
Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a Palestinian official said.
Sheikh Abdulazeem Salhab, the head of Islamic Waqf Council in
occupied Jerusalem, said that 30 Shin Bet officers and a group of
some 40 worshipers headed by Moshe Feiglin, a far-right Knesset
Member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party
entered the complex through the Al-Magharebah gate.
Salhab added that Feiglin, who heads
the Jewish Leadership faction within Likud and challenges
Netanyahu’s leadership of the party, entered the Al-Musalla Al-Marwani,
Al-Musalla Al-Qibli and the Dome of the Rock.
He added that Feiglin “started
provoking the Muslim worshipers under the guard of the Shin Bet
agents.”
Salha said nearly 3,000 Jewish
worshipers and 2,000 police officers have stormed the complex
since early 2012.
He added that the daily storming of
the Muslim’s third holiest shrine is part of the Israeli measures
to Judaize what has been left of Jerusalem “by intensifying the
Jewish presence in it.”
Israel captured East Jerusalem in
June 1967, annexed it in 1980, and has built settlements that are
home to 300,000 Jewish settlers.
On Wednesday, the US Democratic
Party amended its platform to include language supporting occupied
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Israeli media said that the
last-minute change came in the wake of mounting criticism from
Democratic members of Congress incensed that the 2008 platform’s
declaration backing occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel
had been removed from the 2012 text.
The 2008 platform had expressly said
that “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel”.
However, the Knesset Speaker Reuven
Rivlin said that the addition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to
the party’s platform does not make up for its original intentions.
“I have no doubt that (US President
Barack) Obama put Jerusalem back in his party’s platform out of
political and electoral considerations and because of the sharp
criticism from Israel and the US,” Rivlin told Israel’s Radio.
He added party did not remove
Jerusalem from the platform “by mistake or because of
forgetfulness.”
“This is a problematic sign,
indicating the gradual reduction of the American government’s
strategic commitment to Israel,” Rivlin explained.
|
Comments
|
Quick links