Israeli police deny worshippers access to al-Aqsa mosque

Friday September 21, 2007 16:32 by Rami Almeghari - IMEMC & Agencies

The Israeli police forces and the border-guard personnel denied on Friday access of thousands of Arab worshippers into the al-Aqsa mosque in the second Friday prayer of the holy month of Ramadan.

Al-Aqsa Mosque of East Jerusalem

The Israeli authorities in the occupied Palestinian city have been placing many checkpoints and roadblocks across and around the holy city, while thousands of police men have been deployed.

Israel cited the Yum Kipor, a Jewish religious occasion, for locking down the city, in a time hundreds of Jewish worshippers have been allowed access to the vicinity of the Buraq wall �wailing wall� at the al-Aqsa mosque.

Former Palestinian information minister Mustafa Barghouti, speaking to al-Jazeera TV channel, said that such measures indicate that Israel is keeping up in imposing facts on the ground forcibly, thus preempting any peace moves.

The former official added �arriving at the checkpoints en route to the al-Aqsa mosque was a part of our struggle against the Israeli apartheid system. We can not accept such a policy that undermines the basic rights of the Palestinian people�.

�Israeli denial of access of worshippers in the holy month of Ramadan, is a broad Israeli message that Israel insists on keeping Jerusalem under the occupation, denying the Muslims� their right to such a holy city�, Bargouti believed.

Supreme Islamic judge, Tayseer al-Tamimi, considered the Israeli intervention into the Muslim�s worshipping as a provocation of the feelings of believers in the holy month of Ramadan.

Tamimi reiterated that Jerusalem is an occupied city, therefore, Israel does not have the right to harm the holy shrines or prevent prayers.

Thousands of Muslim worshippers flew for the second Friday consecutively into the al-Aqsa mosque in the occupied east Jerusalem to perform the Friday prayers.

The mosque, the third holiest shrine for Muslims worldwide, has been a flashpoint throughout the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as in September 2000, the now ailing former Israeli prime minister and opposition leader Ariel Shron, visited the site, sparking the 7-year-old Palestinian uprising or Intifada.

jerusalem | jerusalem | news report rami at imemc dot org