WEST BANK: Clashes erupt in east Jerusalem nieghborhood /Hundreds of Palestinians pray in vandalised mosque

Record ID: 560035

  • Title: WEST BANK: Clashes erupt in east Jerusalem nieghborhood /Hundreds of Palestinians pray in vandalised mosque
  • Date: 19th December 2009
  • Summary: YASUF VILLAGE, WEST BANK (DECEMBER 18, 2009) (REUTERS) PEOPLE STANDING IN FRONT OF MOSQUE ALLEGEDLY VANDALISED BY JEWISH SETTLERS ON DECEMBER 10TH CHANDELIER IN REFURBISHED MOSQUE PALESTINIAN MINISTER OF WAQF AND RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS MAHMOUD HABASH SPEAKING DURING FRIDAY PRAYERS AT MOSQUE, AFTER IT WAS CLEANED AND REFURBISHED VARIOUS OF MEN AT FRIDAY PRAYERS (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) PALESTINIAN MINISTER OF WAQF AND RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS MAHMOUD HABASH, SAYING: "They (referring to the settlers) will not succeed in provoking us and removing us from our land. We will remain here, and they are the ones who will leave. I also send a message to the Arab world, that the time has come for a real, serious, effective Arab movement in order to save Muslim and Christian holy sites in Palestine from the aggression of the criminal settlers." MEN STANDING OUTSIDE MOSQUE AFTER FRIDAY PRAYERS
  • Embargoed: 3rd January 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVA64OLLCG5GYVASBCJX0CICRKDT
  • Story Text: Israeli police arrest 25 peace activists during a demonstration to support Palestinian residents of a threatened east Jerusalem neighbourhood, while hundreds pray in a recently vandalised and renovated mosque.
    Israeli police arrested some 25 left- wing activists and Palestinians on Friday (December 18) during a non- violent demonstration against Jewish settlements in an east Jerusalem Palestinian neighbourhood.
    The rally was arranged by several organisations, protesting against Jewish settlers who are battling in court to evict dozens of Palestinians from their homes.
    An Israeli police spokesperson said around 150 international, Palestinian and Israeli peace activists had arrived at the neighbourhood in the afternoon hours and tried to enter one of the houses now inhabited by Jews by court orders. The police arrived at the scene and arrested 25 protesters, most of whom are Israeli peace activists.
    "A few of us additionally have been able to get around into back ways to get in here, but the main route into Sheikh Jarrah is also blocked. And what we can assume is, unfortunately, is that there are going to be more arrests. Unfortunately, there is no understanding here that people have the absolute right, non-violently, to express solidarity and protest of the expulsion of these families from their homes," Rabbi Arik Ascherman, director of Rabbis for Human Rights, told Reuters television during the protest.
    Jewish settlers have been trying to lay claim to plots of land in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood which they say were owned by Jews before Israel's creation in 1948. They have already won property rights to six Arab homes, whose residents were subsequently evicted.
    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed not to accept limits on the building of Jewish enclaves within Jerusalem, including in Arab east Jerusalem. He has also rebuffed U.S. calls for a full settlement freeze in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
    Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has said Arab east Jerusalem will be the capital of a future Palestinian state he wants to establish alongside Israel in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
    Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War and considers the whole city as its "united and eternal" capital, a claim that has not won international recognition.
    Also on Friday, hundreds of Palestinian Muslims held Friday prayers in the Yasuf village mosque in the West Bank, allegedly vandalised by Jewish settlers the previous week. The mosque has since been cleaned and refurbished.
    Israeli media reported that the overnight vandalism and arson act was a reaction to the government's freeze on settlement construction.
    Hebrew graffiti sprayed on the pathway at the entrance to the mosque read "price tag", a term that hardline Jewish settlers use to describe their acts against Palestinians as retaliation against Israeli government decisions they see as harming Jewish settlements.
    In the face of the attack, the Palestinian minister of waqf and religious affairs called on the Arab world for support.
    "They (referring to the settlers) will not succeed in provoking us and removing us from our land. We will remain here, and they are the ones who will leave. I also send a message to the Arab world that the time has come for a real, serious, effective Arab movement in order to save Muslim and Christian holy sights in Palestine from the aggression of the criminal settlers," said Mahmoud Habash, who joined the Friday prayers.
    Netanyahu's November 25 announcement that some settlement building throughout the West Bank would be stopped, has enraged the settlers and they are unappeased by government reassurances it is only a temporary measure.
    Israel says the "freeze" aims to relaunch talks with the Palestinians, who see the settlements as a major barrier to peace. For Palestinian leaders who have negotiated with Israel in the past, it is not enough. They have called for a total building freeze before resuming talks.
    With negotiations at a standstill, settler violence increases the explosiveness of an already volatile situation.
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