For the past two weeks, occupied Jerusalem has been riven apart by the actions of the occupation forces at Al Haram Al Sharif. The city has witnessed widespread political protests and violence as a consequence of the occupation forces imposing strict new security measures on Arabs entering the third-holiest site in Islam. These measures included intrusive security cameras and metal scanners that impeded long-held and internationally agreed rights for Muslims to pray at the shrine, located at the heart of the city that has been illegally and immorally held by Israeli occupation forces since the 1967 war.

The latest flare-up was a direct response to events on July 14 when two soldiers of the occupation forces were killed, with the Israelis making an unsubstantiated and unverifiable assertion that the gunmen allegedly fled into the holy shrine after the attack. Overnight, Israel imposed surveillance measures, security cameras and metal detectors, ripping up the rights of Muslims to unfettered and unbridled access to the shrine that includes Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The deaths and violence that have since occurred are the sole responsibility of the occupation authorities.

What this episode has shown, however, is that these same occupation authorities and security forces can no longer act with impunity, they can be swayed, and they are vulnerable to increased pressure on the ground from Arabs living under the yoke of occupation. As a direct result of the protests and street action, the Israelis have backed down and have removed the intrusive and invasive security and surveillance measures. But this is not enough. For too long, the occupation authorities have been swayed by Zionists who have pushed Muslims from the site, shutting access, disrespecting agreements to guarantee Muslims’ rights there. Other measures imposed by the occupation authorities on the site must also be removed — metal railings, an iron bridge and other intrusive security cameras.

Israelis will point to the continued violence as vindication of these extra measures, but that is the wishful thinking of the hateful, the hypocritical and the hysterical who fail to understand that their very illegal presence in the occupied city is the root cause of this — and every other chapter in Palestine since 1948.

This episode has emboldened Palestinian people, who have endured and resisted every attempt by the occupation forces to subjugate and subvert their history and heritage. The very essence of being a Palestinian is to resist Israel and all that it stands for — and as these past two weeks have shown, united resistance yields results. Let that be a lesson for all Palestinians and Arabs.