What is happening in Sheikh Jarrah and AL- Aqsa Mosque

The Story of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood

Four Palestinian families are facing forced expulsions from their Jerusalem homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, because Israeli court has ruled that Israeli settlers can move into Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem .

28 Palestinian refugee families in 1956 displaced from their homes in the cities of Yafa and Haifa and later settled into the Karm al-Jaouni area in Sheikh Jarrah.

At this time West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was under the mandate of Jordan, which had held an agreement with the UN agency for refugees (UNRWA) to build housing units for these families. The agreement stated that the families should renounce their refugee status in return for land deeds signed in their names after three years of living in the area. However, that did not take place and in 1967 Jordan lost its mandate as East Jerusalem was occupied by Israel.

Sheikh Jarrah has long been coveted by Israeli settlers, in 2009, settlers evicted three families from their homes in the neighborhood, today more than 200 Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah face forced expulsions.

Israeli settlers want to take over all of Sheikh Jarrah to strengthen their hold over occupied Jerusalem, where Palestinians are denied equal rights. Israel has been occupying East Jerusalem since 1967, the international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem, since 1967 Israel has demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes, confiscated Palestinian land and built illegal settlements in order to stake its claim on the entire city. It also stripped away the residency right of more than 14,000 Palestinians.

Israel government policy in East Jerusalem is aimed at pushing out Palestinians and ensuring a Jewish majority. In 2010, Jerusalem Mayor Nie Barkat, an Israeli businessman and politician, called Palestinian residents a “strategic threat,” stating that a 70% Jewish majority is the “government’s goal.”

Supplementary to this, Israel violates international law and the united nation’s resolutions issued by general assembly and security council, especially the security council resolution 2334 /2016 states that “all measures aimed at changing the demographic composition and status of Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, including construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians are in violation of international humanitarian law, Israel's obligation as the occupying Power according to the Fourth Geneva Convention”

Israel’s policy of settling its civilians in occupied Palestinian territory and displacing the local population contravenes fundamental rules of international humanitarian law. The article 49 of the fourth Geneva convention 1949 Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory.”

Worshipers in Al-Aqsa Mosque under attack

The occupation was not satisfied with harassing the people of Sheikh Jarrah and attacking them, but today occupation forces stormed the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and tried to evacuate the worshipers from it in preparation for its raiding by Jewish extremist groups and the establishment of Talmudic rituals there, recently Israel occupation forces brutally attacked peaceful worshippers in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Mosque and inside Masjid AL-Qibli ( The Lead Dome) where more than 163 Palestinians were injured . The steadfastness of the worshipers at Al-Aqsa Mosque forced the occupation forces to withdraw and thwart their plans to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque.  Al-Aqsa Mosque has always been an obstacle for the occupation since it considers it a stumbling block in Judaizing the city of Jerusalem.

The image of the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Qibli Mosque represents the Islamic identity of the city and denies it the Jewish character, which the occupation has always tried to prove through excavation and search for any Jewish or Hebrew antiquities. Today, after failing to prove this through excavation, it seeks to change the face of the holy city and its identity by using force, as they send their soldiers every day to terrorize the worshipers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They also let their settlers storm in large numbers to the courtyards of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque to tease the feelings of Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan and perform Jewish religious rituals. On another hand, the occupation forces try to evacuate the neighborhoods of the Old City of Jerusalem from its Palestinian residents and replace them with Jewish settlers.

Blocking content in solidarity with Palestine

Facebook and Instagram reaffirm their bias towards Israel and ignoring the human rights violations committed by the Israeli occupation against Palestinians by blocking thousands of pages on Facebook and Instagram that condemned the storming of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and condemned the forced displacement of the people of Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Moreover, they blocked the  #Al-Aqsa hashtag on the Instagram platform after the Israeli occupation forces attacked worshipers in Al-Aqsa Mosque and Al-Qibli Mosque last night. This confirms the systematic attempts of Judaizing Jerusalem and the forced displacement of the Palestinians from their lands, which does not fight the Palestinians only on their land and violates their self-determination right, but goes beyond that and deprives them of  the right to freedom of expression.

To sum all this up we can say that all these attempts have ended by failing because of the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in Al-Aqsa Mosque, the rallying of Muslims throughout the globe around Al-Aqsa, and the emphasis on preserving its Islamic identity as ​being first of the two Qiblas and the third of the two holy Sanctuaries, will prove to the occupation that Judaizing Al-Aqsa is an impossible task.