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The Palestinian Waqf has expressed its outrage about an Israeli raid on a mosque in Jenin, the scene of recent intense fighting between the IDF and Palestinians. More on the Waqf’s denunciation of Israel can be found here: “Palestinians fire weapons from mosque in Jenin, then complain that ‘Israel damaged our holy place,’” Elder of Ziyon, June 20, 2023:
The Palestinian Waqf issued a statement yesterday:
The Minister of Awqaf and Religious Affairs, Sheikh Hatem Al-Bakri, denounced the Israeli occupation forces’ raid on Al-Assir Mosque in the Al-Jabriyat area, in the vicinity of Jenin camp, on Monday morning.
Al-Bakri said in a press statement that the occupation forces blew up the door of the mosque, broke all the windows, tampered with the mosque’s assets and furniture, and destroyed the devices and speakers.
How many of Sheikh Hakim Al-Bakri’s charges, about wholesale destruction inside the mosque by the IDF, are true? Since the Muslims were firing at IDF troops outside – through what must have been the mosque’s windows – it is much more likely that it was the Palestinians who “broke all the windows.” And why would the IDF bother to destroy “the mosque’s assets [sic] and furniture,” when the soldiers entered the mosque only to stop those who had been firing at them? Such destruction would have been a dangerous diversion from a rapid mission of entering, dodging bullets, and both firing at, and either seizing, or “neutralizing,” the Palestinian shooters within. But in order to whip up hatred, Al-Bakri wants to depict wholesale, wanton description of a holy building.
Of course the IDF was forced to blow open the door of the mosque in which the shooters had barricaded themselves. And it also would have made sense for it to destroy the “devices and speakers” that enabled the muezzin, or indeed any of the fighters inside, to broadcast the call to come, come at once, to fight “the Jews.” Nothing wanton about it. Once the shooting from inside the mosque on the IDF soldiers began, the mosque became a legitimate military target.
The easiest way to whip up Palestinian hysteria is to claim that the Israelis are trying to seize, or destroy, a mosque. That’s why, without the least evidence, the Palestinian terror groups routinely claim that “Al-Aqsa is in danger!” The only danger to Al-Aqsa comes from those Palestinians who use it as storehouse for weapons, including large rocks, bottles (which can then be turned into Molotov cocktails), and fireworks. They then hurl these weapons at Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount, from both inside and outside the Mosque, and from the edge of the Mount, they throw those rocks on Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall down below. The IDF enters Al-Aqsa very rarely, only in cases of extreme violence, in order to pursue Palestinians who have been attacking Jewish visitors on, and Jewish worshippers far below, the Temple Mount.
He emphasized that this violation of our sanctities and mosques is rejected by heavenly laws and earthly laws, adding that this insult to our sanctities and mosques will be confronted by insisting on our adherence to our land and our right to Palestine.Al-Bakri called on the international community to work quickly and seriously to end these daily violations that attack our sanctities and our feelings, and to end these attacks that harm our rights as Muslims and Palestinians….
These “daily violations” of “our sanctities and mosques” that Al-Bakri accuses the Israelis of committing — in fact there was only one Israeli attack inside the Al-Assir mosque — would stop in a New York minute if the Palestinians would only stop firing on IDF soldiers from inside the mosque, who have only arrived in Jenin to arrest people responsible for terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. Why doesn’t Al-Bakri call on the Palestinians to respect the sanctity of the mosques, including Al-Assir, and to stop turning them into military installations? Elder of Ziyon comments:
In fact, the muezzin in Jenin used mosque loudspeakers to call for terrorists to come out and battle the Israelis – meaning that many mosques in Jenin became, according to international law, military command and control centers and therefore legitimate military targets….
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