VARIOUS: Palestinians mark the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha as Israel allows East Jerusalem vote

Record ID: 328263

  • Title: VARIOUS: Palestinians mark the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha as Israel allows East Jerusalem vote
  • Date: 10th January 2006
  • Summary: (BN09)TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (JANUARY 10,2006) (REUTERS) ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER SILVAN SHALOM AND U.S SENATOR Barack OBAMA (DEMOCRAT) SHAKING HANDS; CAMERA OPERATORS (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 25th January 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVAB9HETD4VXY0L28M51SNSZRXIG
  • Story Text: As Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza celebrated the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday on Tuesday (January 10), Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz announced that Israel would allow Palestinians to vote in Arab East Jerusalem in a January 25 Palestinian parliamentary election.
    As several thousand worshippers flocked into Jerusalem's al-Aqsa shrine, Islam's third holiest site, to hold holiday prayers in the narrow streets of the old city covered with candidate posters, campaigners from various political factions continued to distribute flyers ahead of the upcoming elections.
    Israel had earlier threatened to block voting in Jerusalem because it objects to the participation of Hamas, a militant group fielding candidates for the Palestinian parliament for the first time.
    "The elections should be taking place especially in Jerusalem to prove all the world - we are the Palestinians in Gaza Strip, West Bank and in Jerusalem, we are only one people," a Jerusalem resident told Reuters.
    Elsewhere, in Gaza, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held holiday prayers while Hamas senior leader Ismail Haniyah, who led a mass prayer at a different Gaza mosque, said the Palestinian elections should be carried out as scheduled.
    "The Islamic Movement (of Hamas) is determined that election be held in the 25th of this January. The movement denies and our Palestinian people reject any delay for these election under any pretext and under any reason, especially when pretexts are fabricated," Haniyah told reporters.
    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters on Monday he had received "American assurances that the campaigning and the elections will take place in Jerusalem". He did not elaborate.
    Israel had been under U.S. heavy pressure to back down after threatening to block voting in East Jerusalem. But the decision on the East Jerusalem vote was delayed after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a severe stroke last Wednesday (January 4) which put him into a coma. On Tuesday (January 10) Sharon remained in critical condition as doctors pressed ahead with efforts to revive
    him.
    Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told reporters on Tuesday that East Jerusalem Arabs would be able to cast their votes at five post offices in the eastern part of the city -- backing away from an earlier threat to bar participation on the ballot. "We will not interfere in the Palestinian election and we will let them implement the election with the policy that we implemented during the last election in '96," said
    Mofaz who recently joined Sharon's new centrist Kadima party.
    But Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, of the rival right-wing Likud party, claimed the opposite. "Prime Minister Sharon took a decision that those who live there will be able to vote in the villages around
    Jerusalem like Abu Dis and others, and not in those post offices within east Jerusalem. This decision that was taken by Sharon and the Israeli government still exists, and I don't know about any other decisions that was taken," Shalom said at a meeting with U.S. Senator Barack Obama.
    There was no immediate comment from other members of the cabinet, where such decisions are expected to face intense debate with Sharon incapacitated following the massive stroke.
    Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it to their capital in a move not recognised internationally. The Palestinians want the city's eastern sector for the capital of a future state.
    U.S. officials said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch and deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams were expected to visit the region on Tuesday after postponing a trip when Sharon fell ill last week.
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