https://arab.news/jhdtj
- Israeli order mandates the seizure of 288 sq. meters of the roof of the mosque’s inner courtyard
- Order follows a decision in February to transfer authority over the site to the Israeli Civil Planning Authority
LONDON: Israeli authorities have issued an order to seize the roof of the inner courtyard of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron, in the south of the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian settlements watchdog revealed.
The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission reported that an Israeli expropriation order, issued on Monday, mandates the seizure of 288 sq. meters of the designated roof area.
Muayyad Shaaban, the head of the commission, said that the order follows a decision made last February to transfer authority over the Ibrahimi Mosque from the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments to the Israeli Civil Planning Authority.
In July, the supervisory authority over parts of the Ibrahimi Mosque was officially transferred from the Hebron Municipality to the Religious Council in Kiryat Arba for management and structural changes.
The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has said that Israel’s decision to transfer the management of the mosque, known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs, to a settlement council is “an unprecedented move to impose control over it, Judaize it, alter its identity, and a blatant violation of international law and UN resolutions.”
Shaaban said that the latest Israeli measures “isolate the Mosque from its Palestinian surroundings and link it administratively and security-wise to colonial councils,” according to the Wafa news agency.
He called on UNESCO, which had designated the Ibrahimi Mosque as a World Heritage site in 2017, to urgently intervene and protect the site.
“Defending the Ibrahimi Mosque is a defense of Hebron’s identity and heritage, and of the Palestinian people’s right to administer their holy sites and protect their religious and cultural sovereignty,” he said.
The Ibrahimi Mosque is in Hebron’s Old City, where about 400 settlers are protected by about 1,500 Israeli soldiers and surrounded by numerous military checkpoints.
Since 1994, Israel has spatially divided the Ibrahimi Mosque into 63 percent for Jews and 37 percent for Muslims, after an extremist settler massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers at the site.