Ramallah: Israeli occupation forces have removed speakers from several mosques, houses and buildings in occupied East Jerusalem to avoid disturbing Jewish colonists during the call to prayer.

They also instructed hundreds of other mosques in the holy city to lower the volume of their speakers and change their direction towards the centres of the Palestinian neighbourhoods.

According to Khalil Tafakji, a Palestinian activist and head of the Maps Unit at the Orient House, speakers were removed from mosques in Beit Safafa, Al Shaikh Jarah, Jabal Al Mukaber, Sour Baher and several other neighbourhoods nearby Israeli colonies.

The Israeli occupation’s municipality in Jerusalem has put a task force from Israel Ministry of Environment Protection to measure the noise level of more than 200 mosques around occupied east Jerusalem.

The task force concluded that the noise level in most of the Israeli colonies around occupied Jerusalem is unbearable.

Tafakji said that native Jerusalemite community leaders were told by the occupation forces and municipality to install new speakers with adjustable volume and the noise to stick to the allowable limit, that is within the walls of the mosque itself.

“This is only an initial step in the Israeli war against the Muslim calls to prayers in the holy city,” he told Gulf News. “The Israelis want the calls to prayers to take place only inside the mosques without noise reaching a metre away.”

He said that the Israeli occupation forces have ordered the mosques to obtain Israeli licences needed prior to installation of the speakers, or else the Israeli authorities will remove them.

Some Jerusalemites have installed small speakers on top of their houses and buildings to call to prayers as their communities do not hear the calls from mosques.

“Israeli occupation forces have removed them all and warned the owners in writing,” Tafakji said.

He said that the Israeli colonists are mainly complaining about the dawn call to prayers, which he considers a first step to reduce the volume of all mosques in occupied Jerusalem and later remove the speakers from all those mosques. “The Israeli Legislative Affairs Committee of the Knesset [parliament] will soon approve legislation banning the call to prayers from speakers of the mosques,” he said.