"Graves in the area are prohibited"... A sign on the Silwan Children's Cemetery
"Graves in the area are prohibited", a sign placed by the "Nature and Parks Authority" crews on Sunday, on the land of the children's cemetery in the town of Silwan.
"Silwan Children's Cemetery" located in the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood in the town of Silwan is where the children of Silwan have been buried for nearly a century "100 years", after the late Hassan Salem Darwish Rweidi gave the land as an “Endowment” to be allocated for burying children, due to the lack of a designated area for their burial.
The Wadi Hilweh Information Center - Jerusalem said that the area of the cemetery is about a Dunom and a half (1500 square meters), and the residents have been burying their children in it for decades, and they still do, and the cemetery is affiliated with the Islamic Endowment Department.
The center said that the Nature and Parks Authority crews, accompanied by settlers and police officers, stormed the cemetery today and dismantled the metal fence surrounding the cemetery land, then placed a sign on it that read "Open public area, no dumping of waste, graves here are prohibited… The national park around the walls of the Old City.”
The center added that the "Nature and Parks Authority" crews confiscated the metal fence.
The remains of dozens of children are in the cemetery land, but the "Nature and Parks Authority" is trying to confiscate the land and seize it, and turn it into an open area and a garden around the walls of the Old City. The settlers had previously removed a door to the cemetery, and deliberately dumped waste inside it.
The settlers also storm the cemetery from time to time and carry out excavation work inside it.
The "Children of Silwan" cemetery is surrounded by the Ein Silwan Mosque and the stolen Al-Hamra land, and is several meters away from the southern wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
