September 2022…A Jerusalemite martyrs…restrictions and violations in Al-Aqsa Mosque…dozens of arrests and deportation orders
Wadi Hilweh Information Center issued its monthly report for the month of September 2022, during which it monitored the Israeli violations in the city of Jerusalem.
The Wadi Hilweh Information Center said that the occupation authorities and settlers continued their attacks on sanctities, Jerusalemites and their property in the city during the month of September as the settlers escalated their storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the expulsion of Palestinians and the prohibition of prayer in it continued, in addition to the continuing campaigns of arrests and demolitions.
Al-Aqsa Mosque
The so-called Temple groups have carried out daily incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, with the exception of Friday and Saturday, as part of the “morning and afternoon” incursions program, since the beginning and middle of last month in preparation for the Jewish holidays as the temple organizations and groups began to mobilize and prepare for the implementation of the largest incursions into Al-Aqsa during the three holidays “New Year, Kippur, and Sukkot”, preparing programs, submitting petitions to the courts, and running buses from the settlements to transport settlers to Al-Aqsa.
At the end of September, the Jewish holiday season began with the “Hebrew New Year” holiday. During this holiday, 1181 settlers carried out their incursions “during the days of September 25-26-27.” The settlers held collective prayers in Al-Aqsa, and stormed it with clothes special for the holiday, and one of the settlers, on the last day of the holiday, blew the trumpet in Al-Aqsa.
On September 26-27, the occupation authorities imposed a strict siege on Al-Aqsa and the Old City; deploying forces at the gates of the town, especially Lions Gate, Herods Gate and Damascus Gate, in addition to spreading forces and iron barriers at the gates of Al-Aqsa. These measures prevented worshipers under the age of 45 from entering it, as they performed the dawn and noon prayers on the thresholds of the Old City or Al-Aqsa, "the closest place they were able to reach."
Members of the occupation forces also assaulted worshipers outside the gates of Al-Aqsa, especially the gates of “Al-Silsilah, Hutta, and Lions” by beating and pushing them.They also carried out attacks on the worshipers inside Al-Aqsa, by throwing rubber bullets at the worshipers inside the Al-Qibli prayer hall, and pushing the worshipers into the squares to keep them away from the place where the settlers walk.
A few days before the Jewish holidays, the “Temple organizations” submitted a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, demanding that their members be allowed to blow the trumpet inside Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Hebrew New Year, which came on “Monday and Tuesday 26/27 of last month, and to allow the intruders to enter the offerings of the Sukkot holiday; known as the “Four Varieties,” and includes citrus fruits, palm fronds, willow branches, and myrtle roses, during the biblical “Feast of the Throne,” which runs from 10 to 17 October.
Organizations and groups of the alleged temple also demanded that they be allowed to bring in special prayer equipment suitable for these holidays, such as prayer robes, black wrappings, and Biblical prayer books.
Before New Year’s Day, the Magistrate’s Court allowed the settlers to blow the shofar in the Bab al-Rahma cemetery, located east of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and this came in the court’s response to a petition submitted by the former Knesset member from the right-wing Likud party, the extremist rabbi Yehuda Glick. The police decided to remove him from the cemetery, after storming it and blowing the trumpet inside.
The decision of the Magistrate’s Court was carried out by dozens of settlers during the holidays, as they stormed the cemetery and blown the trumpet individually and collectively, and MK SimhaRotman stormed the cemetery and blew the trumpet.
Extremist Knesset member Itamar Ben Gavir stormed Al-Aqsa on the eve of the "Hebrew New Year" holiday, and on the last day of the holiday, and the Commissioner-General of the Occupation Police, accompanied by senior officers, stormed Al-Aqsa, and extremist Rabbi Yehuda Glick broadcasted "the sound of the trumpet" on his mobile phone during his storming Al-Aqsa and his performance of a prayer at Bab Al-Rahma area.
Restrictions and interference with restoration work
The occupation authorities continue to impose restrictions on the restoration work in Al-Aqsa and to interfere in its affairs. The Islamic Endowments Department clarified that the “acoustics and headphones system” in Al-Qibli prayer hall inside Al-Aqsa Mosque suffers from a malfunction and severe damage, and needs to urgently replace the speakers. However, the police prevented and interfered with it.
The martyrdom of a young man
On September 22nd, the young Jerusalemite Mohammad Osama Abu Jom'a, 23 years old, from the town of al-Tur, was shot dead near the settlement of "Modi'in".
The martyr Mohammad Abu Jom’a accompanied his cousin Raed to the town of Kufor Qasem inside the 1948 lands, after he finished his work, to take Raed his two daughters “4-5 years” from their mother to spend the weekend with the family in the city of Jerusalem, and during the return to the city near the settlement of “Modi’in”, on a main street crowded with vehicles, Mohammad was shot after he got out of the vehicle.
His cousin Raed continued his drive to his house at Al-Tur to drop off his two daughters, then he went to the police station to explain what happened to him, so the police extended his detention and transferred him to the interrogation cells.
Martyrs in refrigerators and sanctions on their families
The information center said that the occupation authorities continue to detain the bodies of eight Jerusalemite martyrs in refrigerators: the body of the martyr Mesbah Abu Sbeih (since October 2016), the body of the martyr Fadi al-Qunbar (since January 2017), the body of the martyr Aziz Aweisat (since May 2018), and the two martyrs Shaher Abu Khadija and Zuhdi al-Tawil (since May 2021), the martyr Fadi Abu Shkheidem (since November 2021), the martyr Karim Jamal al-Qawasmi (since March 2022), and the body of martyr Mohammad Abu Jom’a (since September 2022).
As part of the collective punishments and the prosecution of the families of the Palestinian martyrs, the Occupation Court rejected the appeal submitted by the family of the martyr Fadi al-Qunbar, against the decision to withdraw the “temporary residency and identities” of 11 family members.
The Minister of the Interior in the occupation government, AyeletShaked, gave the family members, "who are nephews and nieces of the martyrs, and cousins”, until the sixth of this month to leave Jerusalem.
The occupation authorities handed over to the family members of the martyr Fadi al-Qunbar, immediately after his martyrdom in 2017, “decisions to withdraw residency, temporary identities, and family unification procedures.” Those affected had filed petitions to the occupation’s courts in order to stay in Jerusalem, and were able to stay and move in the city during the last period by court decisions.
181 arrests
The daily arrests continued in Jerusalem, and escalated during the last ten days of September. The Wadi Hilweh Information Center monitored 181 arrests, including “a child under the age of responsibility/under 12 years old, 30 minors, and 16 females, including two girls.”
The center explained that last September, the director of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Omar Al-Kiswani, was among the detainees. Intelligence personnel, accompanied by large numbers of forces, stormed his house in the town of Al-Tur. After searching the house, they arrested him and took him to the police station.
The occupation authorities also renewed the administrative detention of two Jerusalemite prisoners.
The occupation authorities continue the policy of "detention upon release" against the released prisoners. Last September, the forces arrested the freed prisoner, Mohammad Alayan after he spent 6 and a half years in prison, and assaulted him during detention, then released him after several hours on the condition that "not holding any celebrations or raising flags or banners.”
As part of a series of punishments and prosecutions for Palestinian prisoners, the Minister of Defense in the occupation government issued, in late September, an order to seize and confiscate the funds of Palestinian prisoners, from the city of Jerusalem and inside the Palestinian 1948 lands, according to the so-called “Anti-Terrorism Law of 2019” // a seizure order, under the pretext of “supporting terrorism”. The resolution targets 41 prisoners from the Palestinian 1948 lands, and 8 prisoners from Jerusalem, “one of whom is a freed prisoner.”
According to the decision signed by Defense Minister Benjamin Gantz, "the money that the prisoners receive from the Palestinian Authority is money obtained as a reward in exchange for committing terrorist operations."
The town of Al-Tur ... collective attacks and punishments
The information center clarified that the town of Al-Tur recorded the largest number of arrests with 48 arrests, 81 arrests from Al-Aqsa and its surroundings and the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem, in addition to separate arrests from the city's towns and neighborhoods.
The center explained that the residents of al-Tur town have suffered, since mid-September, from various attacks on them by storming the town, setting up barriers inside neighborhoods, stopping vehicles, issuing fines, raiding shops, confiscating goods, submitting summonses to follow up with municipal staff and imposing various taxes on them, in addition to photographing residential facilities and storming several of them and taking their internal measurements, and dozens of young men were arrested and summoned for investigation.
The center added that the campaign of attacks increased after the martyrdom of Mohammad Abu Jom’a who is from Al-Tur, and the town witnessed overnight confrontations during the last week of September.
The "Khaled Rashid" school in the town of Al-Tur was forced to suspend school hours on 24/9, after sewage water was sprayed towards the school.
Al-Tur town committees explained that the occupation forces deliberately sprayed waste water on the main street in the town, "Salman Al-Farsi Street", which is considered the vital street that includes Al-Maqased Hospital, Mount of Olives Schools, Al-Tur Elementary School, Mount of Olives Kindergarten, Love and Faith School, Salman Al-Farsi Mosque, Mount of OlivesClub, a fitness club, and a women's center.
Deportation policy
The occupation authorities escalated the issuance of deportation decisions, and the Information Center monitored 68 deportation decisions, including: 8 deportation decisions from the city of Jerusalem, “4 of them by court decisions, 4 decisions according to the emergency law “military decisions,” 57 expulsion decisions from Al-Aqsa, and 3 deportation decisions from the Old City of Jerusalem.
Demolitions
The occupation municipality continued to implement demolitions in the city of Jerusalem, or to force property owners to demolish them with their own hands, under the pretext of “building without a permit.”
The Wadi Hilweh Information Center has monitored the demolition of 13 facilities in Jerusalem, 6 of which were self-demolished by their owners.
The center explained that among the facilities were 6 houses, in addition to the demolition of commercial and agricultural facilities.
Jerusalem schools strike
The general strike took place in the schools of the city of Jerusalem on 19/9, called by the national and Islamic forces in the city, in rejection of the attempts of the occupation municipality to impose distorted Palestinian curricula on schools, and the threat to withdraw school licenses in the city.
The schools of Jerusalem, with all their references, “municipal, private, civil, UNRWA, and the Islamic Endowments” were emptied of students, after full commitment to the strike, and banners were hung on the doors and streets of the schools saying, “Yes to the Palestinian curriculum...a comprehensive strike...no to the distorted curriculum.”
