NABLUS, January 8 (IslamOnline.net) - With the milestone Palestinian presidential election only one day away, officials and clerics have exhorted indigenous Palestinians of occupied Al-Quds (East Jerusalem) to cast their ballots to protect the Arab identity of the city.

“The voting will send a strong message that Al-Quds is an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories,” Hatem Abdel Qadir, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council for Al-Quds, told IslamOnline.net Saturday, January 8.

Occupied by Israel in 1967, Al-Quds is one of the most sacred cities for Muslims in the world as it is home to Islam’s third holies site, Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Palestinians see it as the only possible capital of their future state, while Israel claims East and West Jerusalem as its capital.

Abdel Qadir said Israel, under a 1996 protocol, agreed to let the Palestinians in Al-Quds to vote in the first presidential elections in five polling stations containing 10 boxes, which have a capacity of 5300 votes.

“Palestinian officials have convinced the Israelis to open a sixth station inside Al-Quds, taking the number of the voters to 6,000 out of 120,000 eligible voters,” he added.

The lawmaker said the rest will have to cast their ballots outside the city, noting that special free-of-charge buses would be available to help.

Palestinian voters will elect Sunday, January 9, a new chairman of the Palestinian Authority to replace their emblematic leader Yasser Arafat, who dramatically passed away on November 11, 2004.

With seven candidates vying, PLO Executive Committee Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Fatah’s sole candidate, seems to stand the best chance to win.

Official campaigning ended Friday, January 7, and international observers from more than 66 countries will monitor the vote.

Presidential candidate Barghouthi arrested by Israeli police in Al-Quds. (Reuters)

Archimandrite Attallah Hanna, the spokesman for the Orthodox Church in Al-Quds, urged the main resistance movements Hamas and the Islamic Jihad to exclude Al-Quds from their boycott appeal.

“It is like a poll on the Arab identity of Al-Quds,” Hanna told reporters.

Hamas said last month it would neither support any of the Palestinian presidential hopefuls nor name a candidate, arguing that the election has been “tailored” for Abbas.

Hanna added that a heavy turnout will deal a blow to Israel, which does not want to see the city’s citizens participating in the election process.

“A low turnout would be propagated by Israel as evidence that Al-Quds citizens want to live under the occupation cloak,” he warned.

A group of Al-Quds natives have jointly paid for an appeal published in the three dailies in the city, urging candidates to take their campaigns to the holy city and encourage residents to turn out en mass on Sunday.

A similar ad co-sponsored by Palestinian and Israeli lawyers allayed fears about legal action that might be taken by Israeli authorities against the voters.

They said that Al-Quds citizens enjoy the same rights as Palestinians living across the occupied territories in accordance with international law.

Palestinians warned in June that Israel’s plan to strip Al-Quds natives of their blue residence identities as yet another attempt to Judaize the holy city.

Al-Quds Center for Research reported in March that some 300 aboriginal Palestinians of Al-Quds were returning to the old town  on a weekly basis to avert Israeli bids to obliterate the city’s identity by its West Bank separation wall.

Israel threatened Saturday to swallow an agreement to facilitate the Palestinian elections.