Ramallah: The committee of Al Ebrahimi Mosque in Hebron has urged Israeli authorities to hand it the keys to the mosque’s Muslim entrance so the community can secure freedom of worship.
It takes at least half an hour for a Palestinian to go through five Israeli military electronic gates and get searched in three different locations to get into the mosque.
According to Hijazi Abu Sinanah, who heads the mosque’s committee, Israeli military forces installed electronic gates and force Muslims to undergo searches in a bid to make them stop attending the mosque.
“Despite the Israeli hindrances and unjustifiable obstacles, Palestinians come to the mosque to perform their five daily prayers, but the number of daily visitors is not satisfactory,” he told Gulf News. “The Israeli military has turned the mosque into a military zone and therefore succeeded in forcing the regular visitors who come to perform prayers to find alternative mosques.”
In 1994 and following a massacre committed by an ultra-Orthodox Jew in which 29 praying Muslims were killed, the Israeli military divided the mosque into two main sections: one for Muslims and the other for Israeli colonists who enjoy easy and comfortable access.
“The tombs of the prophets and their wives is dedicated for the colonists and Muslims are not allowed to pray there,” Abu Sinanah said.
Suffering
Each year Al Ebrahimi mosque is exclusively open for Muslims on ten specific days. Jews have ten other days each year during which the whole site is open exclusively for them.
The mosque has three main entrances: one is sealed off, one is dedicated for Muslim entry and the other is dedicated for Jewish use.
“We have repeatedly asked the Israelis to provide us with keys to our entrance, but they strictly refuse, claiming that the keys will remain solely in the hands of the Israeli military,” Abu Sinanah maintains. The military opens the mosque’s doors at 4am and seals it off at 9pm daily.
Asem Abu Daya, a Palestinian who performs the five daily prayers at the mosque said that Muslims are fed up with the Israeli military procedures at the entrance.
“It is a real suffering to get to the mosque to pray,” he said, stressing that the Israeli military arrest praying Muslims and humiliate many others. “The Israeli military is trying to force Muslims to abandon the mosque.”
