Sheikh Yousef Id’ais, chief Palestinian judge and head of Islamic courts, said that the Israeli occupation authorities escalated its violations against Jerusalem and its residents.
Id’ais said during a press conference in Ramallah alongside the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Sheikh Mohammed Hussein and the deputy minister of Christian affairs at the Ministry of Religious and Waqf Affairs, Hanna Issa, that the Israeli authorities intensified in recent months the confiscation of Palestinians’ lands, demolition of homes, expelling of Palestinians from the city and the arrest campaigns.
He added that the Israeli authorities are also continuing the policy of restricting the entry of Muslims into the Al-Aqsa Mosque Complex and the excavations under it.
Hussein said that Israel carrying a wide-scale and organizes campaign to Judaize the city. Hussein said that the Israeli authorities intensified in recent months the settlement activity in the city to isolate the Arab neighborhoods in the city and to build synagogues in the area.
The grand mufti added that Israeli authorities use symbols of the "Temple" and the Star of David to falsify the city’s history. He added that the Israeli moves aims at "Judaizing Jerusalem and obliterate all Arab and Islamic features of the city, ignoring history and the Arab and Islamic civilization."
Hussein said that Israel “is exploiting the internal Palestinian split and the unrest in Arab countries to implement its expansion projects in the city.”
For his part, Issa said that “Israel is seeking to transfer Jerusalem as its eternal capital by expelling its Palestinian residents.”
He called on international diplomatic missions in Jerusalem to support the rights of Palestinian people and to protect the city from the “dangerous Israeli violations.”
The three officials urged the Arab, Islamic and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to pressure the Israeli government to stop what it described as "crimes against Jerusalem."
Israel captured East Jerusalem in the June 1967 War, annexed it, and has since built settlements there that are home to more than 200,000 Israelis.
Control over the city has been seen as the most sensitive and thorniest issue of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians hope to make East Jerusalem the capital of their future state but the Israel says the city is its eternal capital.
