Occupied Jerusalem-SANA
For the eleventh day, the Israeli occupation continues to bulldoze the Yusufiya cemetery, one of the most important and largest Islamic cemeteries in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, in an attempt to falsify history and obliterate the city's landmarks and identity.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the occupation’s razing of the cemetery to establish a settlement outpost amounts to a crime against humanity, which calls for immediate international action to stop it and hold those responsible to account, noting that what the Yusufiya cemetery is exposed to is evidence of the suffering of the Palestinian people, whom the occupation is trying to uproot even from their graves.
The Palestinian Endowments warned that the occupation’s aggression on the cemetery is a dangerous escalation and part of its plans to Judaize Jerusalem and remove any landmarks confirming its Arab-Islamic identity, calling on the international community to protect Islamic and Christian holy sites in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In a statement to SANA reporter, between the Undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Saleh Tawafsha, the Judaization of Arab and Islamic cemeteries in Jerusalem has escalated since last year, as the occupation bulldozed lands in the Ma’man Allah cemetery, west of the Old City of Jerusalem, to establish a settlement outpost. Al-Asbat is one of the main gates of the Old City from the east to the end of the Al-Aqsa wall on the southern side, pointing out that the most recent attacks by the occupation on cemeteries demolished the Yusufiya cemetery in violation of all international laws and norms, which requires all international institutions, foremost of which is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Urgent intervention to stop the crimes of the occupation and prevent it from implementing its Judaization plans.
A member of the Silwan Lands Defense Committee Fakhri Abu Diab explained that the area of Yusufiya cemetery is 14 dunums and enjoys an important strategic location because it is adjacent to the eastern wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque and because it is the only northeastern entrance to the Old City in Jerusalem, warning that the occupation’s bulldozing and establishing a settlement outpost mean it controls all entrances. And the roads that lead to Al-Aqsa and tightening his siege on it.
Abu Diab explained that the occupation has been carrying out excavation and bulldozing work in the cemetery for several years, and in 2014 it prevented burial in its northern part, and in December 2020, it demolished the wall of the Martyrs’ Cemetery, one of the parts of the Yusufiya cemetery, and bulldozed a number of graves. Where the Palestinians camped in the cemetery to prevent bulldozing and protect the graves of their dead, but the occupation authorities took them out by force and closed them to resume bulldozing about 11 days ago.
Director-General of the Department of Maps and Surveys in the Orient House in occupied Jerusalem, Khalil Al-Tafkaji pointed out that the occupation plans to Judaize Jerusalem in three stages, the first being its siege with settlements, the second establishing outposts in the heart of Palestinian residential neighborhoods, and the third displacing Palestinians and replacing them with settlers, noting that the occupation implements this scheme in the neighborhoods The Old City, and his targeting of historical cemeteries is only part of his attempts to hide the Arab cultural and historical landmarks of the city of Jerusalem.
Al-Tafkaji stressed that the occupation, since 1967, has seized 87 of the area of Jerusalem and is trying to seize the rest of it through the establishment of settlements and Judaization operations in the heart of the Old City, in addition to the expansion of settlement operations in the vicinity of the city with the aim of isolating it completely from the rest of the occupied West Bank cities and towns to implement the annexation plans colonial.
Hasan Khater, Director of Al-Quds International Center pointed out that the occupation is trying to empty Jerusalem of the Palestinian presence, as it is not satisfied with demolishing the homes of the Palestinians, seizing their lands and displacing them, but rather persecuting them in their graves. His land, his history and his civilization until the end of the occupation.
Mohammed Abu Shabab