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By Maha Abdel Hadi & IslamOnline Staff CAIRO & GAZA (IslamOnline) - In a statement to the Egyptian press on Sunday, Al-Azhar University's Sheikh Muhammad Sayed Tantawi said force was the only response appropriate for Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Jerusalem.
Tantawi said the bloody events on Friday and Saturday are "proof that Israel does not want peace, but wants to consolidate the occupation and impose its hegemony over the region." "What Israel has committed is a horrible crime, denounced by Shariah [Islamic law] and contrary to reason," said Tantawi. He condemned Thursday's visit by Israel's right-wing Likud leader Ariel Sharon to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound as an "attack" and a "provocation" which triggered the clashes. "Arabs and Muslims must rely on each other to give our Palestinian brothers the strength to crush that of their enemies," the Sheikh was quoted as saying.
A senior Palestinian official said Sunday that Israeli troops were using "rockets" to disperse Palestinian protesters as clashes between the two sides continued for the third consecutive day in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Mohamed Dahlan, head of Security Forces at the Palestinian-held territories said the Israeli Army shot three "Lau rockets", a highly explosive missile, towards Palestinians and Palestinian police near the Israeli settlement of Netzarim on Friday. Dahlan said the Israelis targeted Palestinian police and killed at least four of them. He also said that Israeli troops were firing extensively at unarmed civilians. Violence erupted here after hard-liner Likud leader Arael Sharon visited the al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine, in a move which Palestinians and several Muslim countries described as "provocative." Sharon said he wanted to show Israel's control over the area which Israel claims as the site of Temple Mount. Sharon was found by his own government to be indirectly responsible for the massacres of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon by Christian militias allied with Israel. Munir Nasser, head of al-Motalea Hospital in East Jerusalem, said Israeli troops rounded up his hospital staff and prevented ambulances from entering with several injured Palestinians. Nasser also complained that Israeli troops have prevented a team of doctors from going into the Old City to help the violence victims. Casualties of the violence, the worst in four years, are increasing by the hour. As of 6:00 pm local Gaza time, 60 demonstrators have been injured. The Palestinian Authority, which control about 40% of the West Bank, has said that 21 people have died and another 800 have been injured over the past two days. The Authority, horn-locked with Israel in peace talks, said it was asking the United Nations Security Council for an international investigation committee to probe Israeli atrocities and decide where blame lies for the flare-up of violence. Palestinian and Israeli leaders have blamed each other for the tensions in Jerusalem's Old City. The clashes, which had been restricted to Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, spread to several Arab Israeli towns where general strikes were declared. Jewish settlers reportedly joined soldiers in shooting live ammunition at protesters. There were reports that the soldiers fired anti-tank weapons from inside the settlement. The four-day-old clashes are the worst since 1996, when Israel's opening of an underground tunnel near the al-Aqsa mosque resulted in the death of 60 Palestinians and 14 Israelis in five days of violence. Several Arab and Muslim countries condemned Israel and blamed the Jewish state for the eruption of violence. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which groups Muslim states, said Israel wanted to plunge the region into a bloodbath. |
Since Friday, 26 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli security forces in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Clashes resumed in the Palestinian territories Sunday following a calm but tense night on Saturday.
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