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Palestinians To Bury Husseini: "Son Of Jerusalem"
JERUSALEM, June 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A swelling crowd of Palestinian mourners chanting nationalist songs joined the funeral cortege Friday of their "knight," Faisal al-Husseini, who is to be laid to rest in Jerusalem amid tight Israeli security.
Young Palestinians waved flags sitting on the roofs of cars accompanying the body of Husseini, the top PLO official for Jerusalem who died of a massive heart attack Thursday in Kuwait.
Palestinians viewed the 60-year-old as the "son of Jerusalem," who devoted most of his life seeking to fulfill his dream of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. He was considered a possible successor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Al-Husseini's coffin arrived Friday for burial at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in the walled Old City in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, after Israeli ultra-nationalists failed in a legal bid to block his burial there.
The funeral procession of several thousand people followed the coffin, entering the Old City through Damascus Gate and into the mosque compound, chanting verses from the Qur'an, blessing Husseini's soul.
Residents of the Muslim sector sprinkled water from their windows onto mourners, sweating from a hot desert wind.
Young Palestinians climbed on the Dome of the Rock mosque to hang a Palestinian flag from the golden dome roof.
The procession had earlier taken the body inside Orient House, Husseini's former Jerusalem office, but the coffin had to be removed after five minutes because of a massive turnout.
Feelings of passion and joy filled Arab east Jerusalem where Palestinian crowds took over the streets, and Israeli security forces seemed invisible in this sector captured by the Jewish state in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Husseini died of a massive heart attack Thursday in Kuwait on the first visit by a senior Palestinian official to the emirate since Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
"Jerusalem is Arab," some mourners cried as the funeral got underway.
Israeli troops turned back cars with Palestinian license plates at one checkpoint on the road to Jerusalem from the West Bank town of Ramallah, allowing only Israeli-registered vehicles to pass.
Mourners were frustrated as crowds of thousands of Palestinians were held up at a heavily guarded Israeli checkpoint closer to Jerusalem, but soldiers showed restraint as one Palestinian-registered car forced its way through.
Israeli authorities are keeping Israelis away from the path of the procession, which was unmarred by violence.
Earlier, Husseini's body was flown in to Ramallah by helicopter from Jordan.
CNN reports that as Husseini's casket, draped in a Palestinian flag, was carried off the helicopter on the shoulders of eight Palestinian officers, Arafat saluted and said: "To heaven, you, the beloved of martyrs."
Men in dark green fatigues and red berets escorted his closed coffin to the edge of the Palestinian-run town where they fired a volley of shots saluting him.
Arafat, who cut short a European trip to attend the funeral ceremonies, and is banned by Israel from Jerusalem, stayed behind in Ramallah as the procession wound its way up to the hills of Jerusalem, the road cleared for the cortege.
"With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, oh martyr," the mourners chanted as religious music and verses from the Holy Qur'an blared from loudspeakers mounted on cars.
The three main Palestinian newspapers devoted their front pages almost exclusively to condolence messages and news of Husseini's death, remembering him as a "martyr" for the Palestinian cause and the "Knight of Jerusalem."
Even Israel's top-selling Yediot Aharanot newspaper paid tribute to Husseini with the front-page headline "Death of the Palestinian Prince."
Also, MSNBC quoted Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor in Jerusalem, who told Israel radio, "If there was a man that you could find a shared language with, it was Faisal Husseini," he said, adding that, "the language of peace suffered a serious blow today."
The body lied in state at Orient House, the semi-official Palestinians office in Jerusalem where he used to work, for friends and family to pay their final respects, but the coffin had to be removed after five minutes because of a massive turnout.
Orient House was a disused Husseini family mansion that he turned into the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) headquarters, reports the BBC.
Black flags were hung around the offices as three days of official mourning have been declared.
A statement from Orient House paid tribute to its former director as "the determined struggler, the faithful peacemaker" who worked for Palestinian rights in the holy city.
Husseini will be the first person to be buried there since the 1967 war.
Israel's supreme court rejected Friday a bid by ultra-nationalists to prevent Husseini from being buried at the hotly contested site that is sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
Husseini will be buried next to his father Abdel Qader Husseini, a resistance fighter who died in the battle for Jerusalem in 1948, and his grandfather.
Arafat, who is a distant relative, accused Israel of indirectly contributing to the death of Husseini.
He said Husseini, who suffered from asthma, had inhaled tear gas in the occupied territories days earlier, which had "probably" exacerbated the condition "and that is why we lost this leader and dear friend."
Arafat appeared to be referring to an incident on May 16th in the West Bank when Husseini was among 200 West Bank Palestinians and Israeli Arabs who faced teargas from Israeli security forces trying to disperse them, reports CNN.
But speaking before the Belgian Senate on Thursday, Arafat said Husseini's death should lead to a "greater determination to establish peace in the Middle East."
Tributes to Husseini poured in Thursday from world capitals; with Washington saying it was "very saddened" by his death.
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