AMMAN: An estimated 15,000 Palestinian worshippers flocked to Al-Aqsa Mosque for Friday prayers, one month after the Israeli authorities banned entry due to the coronavirus lockdown.
Al-Aqsa’s preacher and the head of the Higher Islamic Committee, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, who had been barred for four months in June, was able to attend the Friday prayers. He told Arab News that the situation was back to normal. “All gates were open today and the Israelis allowed worshipers access to the mosque,” he said. Sheikh Sabri had issued calls to Muslims who could attend Friday prayers.
Hijazi Risheq, the head of the Jerusalem merchants committee, told Arab News that for the first time in weeks Israeli soldiers allowed entry to Islam’s third holiest mosque.
He said: “No Israeli soldiers were seen at the entrance of Jerusalem’s old city, allowing free access to the walled city, but some Palestinian youth with West Bank ID were prevented access to the mosque.”
Palestinians from inside Israel were among those reaching Jerusalem for the weekly Friday prayers.
Risheq told Arab News that the past week had been difficult for the city’s business community.
“During last week we witnessed an unprecedented and nasty campaign by the Israeli occupation forces against the merchants and residents of the city of Jerusalem. Shopkeepers were fined exorbitant violations of 5,000 shekels ($1,500) and any clients at the shops were also fined 500 shekels.”
Rizeq said that there appeared to be miscommunication and contradictions in the orders and guidance by the Israeli forces — “all at the expense of the merchants and residents of the city.”
The prevention of entry to the old city was a combination of the Jewish holidays and the lockdown due to the coronavirus, Palestinians told Arab News.
The Jerusalem Waqf Council had issued a six-point guide to worshippers giving medical advice about social distancing and about bringing their own prayer rugs, and recommended that older Muslims stay away from Al-Aqsa for their own protection.
Miki Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, confirmed the prayers for Muslims. “The Temple Mout (Al-Aqsa) was open on Friday and the prayers took place in a regular and quiet manner,” he told Arab News.
Palestinians allowed to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque
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Palestinians allowed to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque
- Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, who had been barred for four months in June, was able to attend the Friday prayers
- Palestinians from inside Israel were among those reaching Jerusalem for the weekly Friday prayers
Turkiye moves to evacuate nationals from Lebanon
- Turkiye is estimated to have 14,000 citizens registered with its consulate in Lebanon
ANKARA: Turkiye on Wednesday sent ships to evacuate around 2,000 of its citizens from Lebanon, with its Beirut envoy saying it would be “the biggest” evacuation of its type from the war-torn country.
A Turkish diplomatic source told AFP two naval ships carrying the evacuated nationals and their families would arrive at the southern Turkish port of Mersin “in the early hours” of Thursday morning.
The two ships set sail overnight for the Lebanese capital whose southern suburbs were hit overnight by fresh Israeli bombardments.
“These ships, with a capacity of around 2,000 people, will be ready to take those of our citizens who requested it from Lebanon to Mersin port,” Turkish ambassador Ali Baris Ulusoy told TRT Haber public television.
Turkiye, which is estimated to have 14,000 citizens registered with its consulate in Lebanon, announced the move on Tuesday because of the deteriorating security situation on the ground in Lebanon.
Images on TRT Haber showed a crowd of people at Beirut port waiting to board the boats.
The ambassador said the two ships were also bringing “approximately 300 tons of humanitarian aid” to show Turkiye’s support for the Lebanese people, including tents, bedding, hygiene kits and kitchenware.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, killing more than 1,100 people and forcing more than a million to flee, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Monday.
Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 42,010
- The toll includes 45 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Wednesday that at least 42,010 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 45 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 97,720 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Hamas, Fatah leaders to hold Palestinian unity talks in Cairo
- Hamas delegation led by Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s chief negotiator and Hamas’ second-in-command, currently based in Qatar
CAIRO: Leaders from the Islamist group Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement will hold further unity talks in Cairo on Wednesday, a Hamas official told Reuters.
According to Taher Al-Nono, the media adviser of the Hamas political chief, the Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Tuesday. It was led by Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s chief negotiator and Hamas’ second-in-command, currently based in Qatar.
“The meeting will discuss the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, and the challenges facing the Palestinian cause,” Nono said.
There was no immediate comment from Fatah.
The meeting will be the first in months since the two groups held talks in the Chinese capital in July, agreeing on steps to form a unity government. Similar rounds in the past have so far failed to make progress.
The issue of the post-war Gaza administration is one of the thorniest issues facing the Palestinians, and both factions have said it was an internal affair, rejecting any Israeli conditions.
Israel vowed it would not accept any role for Hamas in post-war Gaza. It says it doesn’t trust the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority to do the job either.
Israel carries out new strikes in Gaza, UN chief says many trapped in north
- Israel says it is rooting our Hamas militants
- Israel presses on with raid on Jabalia refugee camp
CAIRO: At least 18 people were killed in overnight military strikes on Gaza, Palestinian medics said on Wednesday, as Israeli forces pressed on with a raid on the Jabalia refugee camp in the enclave’s north.
The Israeli military says the raid, now in its fifth day, is intended to stop Hamas fighters staging further attacks from Jabalia and to prevent them regrouping.
It has repeatedly issued evacuation orders to residents of Jabalia and nearby areas, but Palestinian and UN officials say there are no safe places to flee to in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had received unconfirmed reports that dozens of Palestinians may have been killed in Jabalia and other areas of northern Gaza, but is unable reach them because of Israeli bombardments.
“At least 400,000 people are trapped in the area,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee Agency (UNRWA), posted on X on Wednesday.
“Recent evacuation orders from the Israeli Authorities are forcing people to flee again & again, especially from Jabalia Camp. Many are refusing because they know too well that no place anywhere in #Gaza is safe.”
Lazzarini said some UNRWA shelters and services were being forced to shut down for the first time since the war began and that with almost no basic supplies available, hunger was spreading again in northern Gaza.
“This recent military operation also threatens the implementation of the second phase of the #polio vaccination campaign for children,” he said.
Israel did not immediately comment on Lazzarini’s remarks. Israeli authorities have previously said they facilitate food deliveries to Gaza despite challenging conditions.
Overnight strikes
Israel’s military, which is also in conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, says Hamas militants use residential areas as cover in the densely populated territory, including schools and hospitals. Hamas denies this.
In one Israeli strike overnight on a house in Shejaia, a suburb of Gaza City, nine people of the same family were killed, medics said. The rest of the dead from the overnight strikes were killed in central areas of the Gaza Strip.
Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, the Gaza health ministry says. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the enclave has been laid to waste.
Iran rejects UK security official’s ‘accusations against Iran’, foreign ministry says
DUBAI: Tehran rejects “accusations” put forward by a British security official, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Wednesday, a day after UK’s MI5 spy chief said 20 Iran-backed potentially lethal plots had been disrupted in Britain since January 2022.
In a wide-ranging speech on Tuesday outlining the current threat picture, Security Service (MI5) Director General Ken McCallum accused Iran of being behind “plot after plot” on British soil.
McCallum said state threat investigations were up 48 percent in the last year as Russia and Iran turned to criminals, drug traffickers and proxies to carry out their “dirty work.”
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson dismissed what he described in a statement as repetitive accusations over the last two years by the British security official, whom he did not name.
Baghaei accused the British of hosting “terrorist” groups that take advantage of free speech to promote violence, according to the statement and asked London to reconsider its policies toward “the nation of Iran and West Asia.”
