Ramallah: Israeli colonists with the full support of the Israeli Army yesterday burned Al Anbiyaa Mosque in the village of Beit Fajar, south of Bethlehem. The Israeli-Palestinian Security Coordination Office subsequently launched an investigation into the incident after Israeli officials from the district coordination office (DCO) had visited the mosque and seen the damage.
Earlier, the Israeli Army put up road barriers and prevented Palestinian officials from reaching the mosque site to assess the damage and recover copies of the Quran from the mosque.
Eyewitnesses told officials who reached the area that the colonists brandished weapons and threatened residents who attempted to resist their attempts to burn the mosque.
The burning of the mosque evoked widespread condemnation with a large number of Palestinians gathering at the mosque site chanting slogans against the Israeli colonists and their act of sacrilege.
Mahmoud Taqatqa, a resident of Beit Fajar and an eyewitness to the incident, said he woke up at around 2:45 am hearing voices of colonists trying to break down the mosque’s door. He told Palestinian officials that he rushed out and tried to stop the colonists as they tried to burn the mosque but they threatened to kill him if he did not leave the scene.
Taqatqa said he returned and woke up other villagers urging them to defend the mosque. He stressed that the colonists were given the full protection of the Israeli Army, which escorted them without getting directly involved in the arson attack.
The Israeli Army never stepped in to stop the arsonists until villagers approached the mosque and tried to protect it. The soldiers, in fact, turned on villagers who clashed with colonists as they collected copies of the Quran and burnt them in a hall of the mosque, he added.
According to a statement issued by the Bethlehem Governorate, Mohammad Hussain, the Mufti of occupied Jerusalem and Palestine, said there could be no justification for the crime which was part of a policy of premeditated Israeli aggression against Palestinians. He added that the colonists were trying to target Islam and its symbols like the Quran but such mindless actions would only make the Palestinians more steadfast in their resolve to defend their lands.
Targeting religious places went against the tenets of all religions and international norms and pointed to the nature of the ultra-orthodox right-wing coalition in Israel, Hussain said. The Israeli government was a colonist dispensation that ganged up with the colonists in all their plots, goals and projects, he added stressing that the colonists could not have possibly made it to the mosque without the full protection of the Israeli Army.
Hussain called on the Arab League Peace Process Follow Up Committee and the Arab Summit to take strong positions that would empower Palestinians and the Palestinian National Authority, stressing that Arabs could not leave Palestinians to themselves in their struggle to regain their land.
Mohammad Taha Abu Alia, the Deputy Governor of Bethlehem, said the Palestinian leadership was fully seized of the Israeli colonists’ actions under the protection of the Israeli Army.
Abu Alia, who is also a member of the Palestinian Revolutionary Council, officially condemned the attack and stressed that it would be brought to the notice of international organisations.
He said the Palestinian National Authority would keep on supporting its people who refused to be intimidated by the barbaric actions of the colonists. He called on residents of Beit Fajar to rebuild their mosque to send a message to the colonists and their protectors that the Palestinian people were determined to hold on to their lands as one despite all provocations.
