Mohammed Mar'i Saudi Gazette RAMALLAH – The al-Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron has been closed for the second day for the sake of Jewish worshipers, a Palestinian official said on Saturday. Zaid Al-Ja'bari, the head of Wakf and Religious Affairs Department in Hebron, said that the Israeli forces closed the mosque to protect thousands of Jewish worshipers who have been visiting the holy place.
Al-Ja'bari said that hundreds of soldiers, police officers and military police were deployed in the Hebron's Old City to prevent rock, firebomb and shooting attacks against the worshipers. Al-Ibrahimi Mosque is the second holiest Islamic site Palestinian territories after Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. This 1000-year old mosque enshrines the tombs of Prophet Ibrahim, his sons and their wives. The mosque was divided into Muslim and Jewish sections by an Israeli government special committee called “Shamgar committee” after a 1994 massacre that took place in the mosque when a Jewish occupier opened fire on Muslim worshippers killing and injuring 26 at Fajr (dawn) prayer. Since then, Israeli authorities have violated Muslim rights in the Ibrahimi Mosque by restricting Muslims to praying in the Mosque. The authorities gave Jewish occupiers access to the Muslim holy site which Israeli forces close for Jewish holidays. The occupiers desecrated this holy Mosque and often embarrassed and ridicule Muslims while praying. Hebron was divided to two areas according to Wye River agreement, signed by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in 1998. H1 area, under complete Palestinian control, and H2, which is under Israeli security control. The number of Palestinian living in the two areas is around 150,000. The total number of Jewish occupiers living in H2 is about 400 permanent residents. Israeli government policy in H2 has forced thousands of Palestinian residents to abandon more than 1,000 homes and at least 1,829 businesses and turned the area into a ghost town, Israeli human rights organizations B'Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel said. On Thursday, the Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel said that his ministry plans to double the number of Jewish homes in Hebron. Ariel, of the rightist Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party, told the Army Radio that he supported “concrete plans for the construction of 100 (new) homes in Hebron.” The minister said that “the land for this exists, and we're preparing the (building) project. We hope that during the coming year we can begin to build.”
