“The Aqsa Mosque is Yet to Face Israel's Most Serious Steps”

Sheikh Ra’ed Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement in the 1948 occupied lands, on Friday warned that Israel’s next steps against the Aqsa Mosque would be the most dangerous ever.

“Despite the gravity of what we see happening at the Aqsa Mosque, the Zionist occupation is preparing for a more serious scene,” Sheikh Salah stressed in a press statement.

The Islamic Movement head explained that that the Israeli occupation will announce in mid-March the opening of what is called “the temple of wreck” near the Aqsa Mosque as a prelude to demolishing the latter and building the alleged temple on its ruins.

He also called on the Palestinian Authority to allow the West Bank people to assume their role in defending the Aqsa Mosque.

In the same context, Al-Quds international institution said in a press release issued on Friday that the Israeli occupation police’s deliberate break-ins at the Aqsa Mosque and their clashes with the Palestinians confirm that they are determined to carry out the decision issued by their government which called for dividing the Mosque between Muslims and Jews during 2010.

“The successive break-ins and proceedings bear out that the occupation police adopt a cumulative policy to control the Aqsa Mosque with all its courtyards,” the institution underlined.

It recalled that the police attacks on the Aqsa Mosque were waged sequentially last year and during this year especially on February 28 when the occupation police took full control of the Mosque courtyards and allowed settlers to walk around and perform their odd rituals freely.

For its part, Hamas government in Gaza on Friday condemned the Israeli attacks on Palestinian worshipers in occupied Jerusalem and Al-Khalil city as a massacre and called on the Arab and Muslim nation to move to protect their holy sites.

Spokesman for the government Taher Al-Nunu said that the government is keenly following the Israeli escalation against the Islamic holy sites in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank which led to the injury of many Palestinians.

The spokesman appealed to the international community and its active institutions especially the UN and its Security Council to urgently act to curb Israel and stop its aggression on the Palestinian people and their holy shrines.

ISLAMIC CONFERENCE: ISRAELI ACTION AT AL-AQSA SACRILEGE



The Organization of the Islamic Conference Saturday accused Israeli police of sacrilege by occupying Al-Aqsa Mosque and called for international intervention to "end Israeli aggression."

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the Jeddah-based pan-Islamic body, said in a statement that Friday's fighting between Muslims and Israeli occupation police was "a sacrilegious act of profanation of the holy Islamic site."

The Israeli police action was "a violation of international law and a flagrant attack on the freedom of religion of the nature that could take the region into a war between religions," he said in the statement.

Ihsanoglu called on the international community and the so-called “Quartet” on Middle East peace - the European Union, the United States, Russia and the United Nations - to "pay heed to the gravity of the Israeli violations and the threat they pose to the region now and in the future." He called for "an international intervention effective at every level to end Israeli aggressions and make Israel respect international law."

US REPUDIATES UN REMARK ON CONFRONTATIONS

Meanwhile, a US official denied on Friday that Washington had consented to a UN Security Council statement to reporters voicing concern about the confrontations between Israeli occupation forces and Palestinians.

Gabon's UN Ambassador Emmanuel Issoze-Ngondet, president of the Security Council for March, read the nonbinding remarks on behalf the 15 council members after a closed-door discussion of the violent clashes. "The members of the Security Council expressed their concern at the current tense situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, including east Jerusalem," Issoze-Ngondet said.

"They urged all sides to show restraint and avoid provocative acts," he said after a closed-door meeting. "They stressed that peaceful dialogue was the only way forward and looked forward to an early resumption of negotiations."

The US envoy at the meeting, Deputy Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, did not speak to reporters at the Security Council stakeout after the meeting.

A US official, however, told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the American delegation had not agreed with the statement and said it was adopted due to what the official described as "procedural confusion."

Several council diplomats familiar with the negotiations on the statement, however, told Reuters that the US delegation made no attempt to raise any objections to the final version of the text, which they said was adopted by consensus.

The permanent Palestinian observer to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, welcomed the council statement, adding that the apparent US decision not to block it "is a signal that the United States wants this effort to succeed" and Israel to restrain itself.

In a letter sent to the Security Council, Mansour said dozens of Palestinians were injured in Friday's clashes in occupied east Jerusalem, citing reports that "at least 60 people may have suffered injuries, including one Palestinian woman who was shot in the head with a rubber bullet."

"Once again we alert the international community to the dangers of the further escalation of the situation," the Palestinian diplomat added.

One Western diplomat noted that Mansour had failed to point out that the statement read out by Issoze-Ngondet had called on "all sides" to show restraint, not just Israel.

Council press statements are agreed by consensus, but they are nonbinding and not part of the official council record.

Earlier on Friday Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of trying to wreck peace efforts and spark unrest across the Middle East by police provocation at the Aqsa mosque.

The tension comes ahead of a relaunch of US-mediated peace negotiations, and two days before US President Barack Obama's envoy George Mitchell visits Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.