How Muslim faithful in Jerusalem savored the essence of Ramadan

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Palestinian worshippers pray outside the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on the third Friday of Ramadan, on April 30, 2021. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
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Israeli security forces stand guard in front of the Lion's Gate in Jerusalem to prevent worshippers from reaching the Al-Aqsa mosque compound amid restrictions due to the coronavirus, on September 25, 2020. (AFP file photo)
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Israeli security forces detain a Palestinian who tried to break through a security barrier to enter the the closed Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem on May 24, 2020. (AFP file photo)
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Israeli security forces keep watch as Palestinian worshippers attend the prayers of Eid al-Fitr outside the closed Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem on May 24, 2020. (AFP file photo)
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Palestinian worshippers arrive to pray outside the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on April 30, 2021. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
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Palestinian worshippers pray outside the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on the last Friday of Ramadan, on May 7, 2021. (AFP)
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Palestinian worshippers pray outside the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on April 30, 2021. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
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In Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the last 10 days of the holy month of Ramadan are always special. (Photo Credit: We One Agency, Jerusalem, Palestine)
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In Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the last 10 days of the holy month of Ramadan are always special. (Photo Credit: We One Agency, Jerusalem, Palestine)
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In Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the last 10 days of the holy month of Ramadan are always special. (Photo Credit: We One Agency, Jerusalem, Palestine)
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In Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the last 10 days of the holy month of Ramadan are always special. (Photo Credit: We One Agency, Jerusalem, Palestine)
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In Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the last 10 days of the holy month of Ramadan are always special. (Photo Credit: We One Agency, Jerusalem, Palestine)
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Updated 13 May 2021
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How Muslim faithful in Jerusalem savored the essence of Ramadan

  • The last 10 days of Ramadan are always special but in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque they are unique
  • Worshippers and students often have questions about life and look for solutions for daily issues

JERUSALEM: The last 10 days of the holy month of Ramadan are always special. In Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque they are unique — and charged.

On May 10, Israeli police, firing tear gas and rubber bullets, stormed the Haram Al-Sharif, which houses both Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. More than 300 people were injured in the ensuing violence.  

Before the unrest erupted there, Arab News spent four days in Jerusalem and talked to the faithful as they awaited Laylat Al-Qadr, the night of fate that falls on the 28th day of Ramadan and marks the date, according to Muslim scholars, when the Holy Qur’an was revealed.

Most worshippers stressed the spiritual dimension of their visits.

Mohammed Abdo, a laborer from Jerusalem’s Sur Baher neighborhood, said he liked to go to the mosque as often as possible but due to his work he usually visited for afternoon and evening prayers. “But my favorite is the dawn prayer. It feels very spiritual and heavenly,” he added.

Mustafa Abu Sway, a professor of Islamic studies at Al-Quds University and holder of the Ghazali chair, said he is almost always at Al-Aqsa Mosque for noon prayers. “I give daily lectures and the best time for these spiritual talks is just before the noon prayers.”

He noted that worshippers and students often have questions about life and look for solutions for daily issues.




Palestinian worshippers arrive to pray outside the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on April 30, 2021. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)

“We try and deal with how the Islamic faith has a direct influence on our behavior. Whether it is in personal relations, work ethics, or issues of the environment, we talk about all these issues during our discussions,” he added.

He pointed out that there was great interest in international academic circles in the doctrines and thinking of Al-Ghazali, an influential Islamic theologian and a famous preacher.

Getting to Al-Aqsa is not easy. The nearest parking lot for those coming from outside the Old City is several kilometers away. A fleet of electric carts carry older and disabled people, but the majority have to make the long walk on cobbled streets.

Some enter via the Damascus Gate to the north and make their way up the Khan Al-Zayt and the Suq Al-Wad, two ancient thoroughfares, to the higher ground of Haram Al-Sharif.




Israeli security forces stand guard on Sept. 25, 2020 in front of the Lion's Gate in Jerusalem to prevent worshippers from reaching the Al-Aqsa mosque compound amid COVID-19 restrictions. (AFP file photo)

Others come via Lion’s Gate in the city’s eastern wall. Once inside the compound, there are separate entrances for men and women in the Dome of the Rock mosque. Inside, a small wooden barrier divides the genders.

In the separate Al-Aqsa structure, the southern Al-Qibly is reserved for men while the part close to the Bab Al-Rahmeh, another prayer section, is divided with men on the right side and women on the left.

The whole compound, which forms an esplanade that dominates the Old City, is maintained by the Jordanian Ministry of Waqf. Jordan held the Old City and the West Bank until 1967.

During Ramadan, the Waqf sets up special areas for hundreds of worshippers to break their fast. Many come from out of town either from within the 1948 borders of Israel or from various parts of the West Bank.




Israeli security forces keep watch as Palestinian worshippers attend the prayers of Eid al-Fitr outside the closed Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem on May 24, 2020. (AFP file photo)

This year and last, entering Israel from the West Bank has been further complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Only those who have been vaccinated have been able to obtain a permit to travel from the West Bank.

Before the May 10 incursion by the Israeli police into the Haram Al-Sharif, Israeli commanders had ordered the green-bereted border guards and plainclothes security to adopt a low profile.

At the beginning of the holy month, Israeli security forces cut off electricity to four minarets and blocked a plaza in front of the Damascus Gate, a major entrance to the Old City northwest of Al-Aqsa.

The commanders were trying to silence the call to prayer on the same evening as a Jewish remembrance event for fallen Israeli soldiers. On another date, they attempted to head off clashes between Palestinians and hardline Jewish protesters who shouted, “Death to Arabs.”

The atmosphere was further soured by attempts to evict Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood outside the Old City from buildings claimed by Jewish settlers. The US and EU appealed for calm.




Israeli security forces detain a Palestinian who tried to break through a security barrier to enter the the closed Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem on May 24, 2020.  (AFP file photo)

The mosque’s guards, who are employed by the Jordanian government, also kept a low profile as worshippers moved into and around the complex.

The Palestinian guards were monitoring visitors to ensure that they did not violate an agreement reached in 2014 in Amman between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then US Secretary of State John Kerry, and King Abdullah of Jordan.

The unwritten understanding stated that only Muslims may pray in Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock while all others may visit. The esplanade is, however, claimed by Jews to be the site of the First and Second Temples, which are sacred to the Jewish tradition. Israel claims the whole of Jerusalem as its undivided capital.




In Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the last 10 days of the holy month of Ramadan are always special. (Photo Credit: We One Agency, Jerusalem, Palestine)

The Waqf guards seek to head off attempts by hardline Jewish groups, such as the Temple Mount Faithful, who want to rebuild the third temple on the site. They may attempt to recite Jewish prayers as a sign of claiming sovereignty.

In the few hours separating the afternoon prayers from the evening prayers that follow the breaking of the fast or iftar, Al-Aqsa was quieter. Locals from the Old City returned to their homes to break the fast with their families, while outsiders were invited to a special corner of the mosque compound by various charities to share in a hot meal, drinks, and sweets.

Washing areas were available as well as drinking water for those who fasted through the day without drinking or eating.

In the evening, residents of the Old City came out of their houses to hold joint Taraweeh prayers with those who stayed in the mosque. Late evenings were spent in small and large group talks and religious studies.




Palestinian worshippers gather outside Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound ahead of the third Friday prayers of the holy month of Ramadan, on April 30, 2021. (AFP file photo)

Some stayed up all night for the suhoor breakfast. Many slept before being awakened to partake in a light meal before the imsaq (the time of abstaining) as the sun rose.

Early risers returned to the mosque for the special time in the early morning hours for the dawn prayers.

Some do not have the luxury of being able to spend a night in the Haram Al-Sharif, in what is the third-holiest site in Islam.

Nemeh Quteneh, from Beit Safafa, another district in east Jerusalem, was with her mother and aunt as they walked toward the Dome of the Rock, which houses the tip of Mount Moriah, for afternoon prayers.

She said: “My mother, Sufiana, can only come in the afternoon, but I prefer the early morning prayers. The air is calm and the quiet allows one to have that spiritual connection that this holy place allows.”

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Twitter: @daoudkuttab


Gaza reaching ‘humanity’s darkest hour,’ says WHO

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Gaza reaching ‘humanity’s darkest hour,’ says WHO

  • Many families fleeing south to Rafah which is already overcrowded with dire conditions

GENEVA, GAZA STRIP: The situation in the Gaza Strip is getting worse all the time and approaching humanity’s “darkest hour,” the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

Israel declared war on Hamas after the militant group’s Oct. 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and which saw around 240 hostages taken back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas and secure the release of all the hostages. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says the war has killed nearly 15,900 people in the territory.
Here are some of the key concerns being raised by the WHO and other UN agencies:
Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, told reporters in Geneva, via video link from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, that the number of people on the move from central and southern Gaza was “vastly increasing.”
Israeli forces battled Hamas militants in southern Gaza on Tuesday, with fighting pushing civilians into a steadily shrinking area of the besieged Palestinian enclave.

FASTFACT

Most of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people have been made homeless by the war, and the new phase of displacement since a weeklong truce ended on Dec. 1 is worsening an already catastrophic situation.

After initially focusing on northern Gaza, the Israeli army has now sent ground forces into the south and urged civilians to evacuate.
“The situation is getting worse by the hour. There is intensified bombing going on all around, including here in the southern areas,” said Peeperkorn.
“A lot of people are desperate and almost in a permanent state of shock.”
“We are close by humanity’s darkest hour,” Peeperkorn said.
“These bombings and the senseless loss of life must stop now, and we need a sustained cease-fire.”
Early in the conflict, the WHO established two adjacent warehouses in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza but said on Tuesday it had to find a smaller one in Rafah after being advised to move by Israel’s military.
“We comply because we want to make sure that you can actually deliver essential medical supplies,” said Peeperkorn.
The WHO managed to scramble out 90 percent of the stockpile in “a panic movement.”
“And we had to abort the mission we were planning to do to bring supplies to the hospitals.
“This ... should be our top priority, to get a sustained line of the most essential medical supplies, trauma supplies, essential drugs into Gaza,” and then distribute it to health facilities.
He said the amount of aid that the WHO had been able to bring into Gaza was “way too little.”
“For this kind of humanitarian disaster, where we are in an increasing disaster, we need much more supplies and equipment in,” he said.
Eighteen of the Gaza Strip’s 36 hospitals are still functioning in any capacity: Three are providing basic first aid only, while the rest are delivering partial services. Twelve of the 18 are in the south.
There are 1,400 hospital beds still available in the Gaza Strip. The WHO says 5,000 are needed.
Peeperkorn said that since the start of the war, there had been 120,000 acute respiratory infections; close to 26,000 people with scabies and lice; 86,000 cases of diarrhea, including 44,000 among children aged under five, which he said was 20 to 30 times higher than could be expected.
Meanwhile some 1,150 cases of jaundice have been recorded, along with cases of chicken pox, skin rashes and meningitis.
James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said that with the population on the move, in two hours “there are 5,000 people where there was noone previously. Critically in these places, there’s no sanitation.”
Speaking from Cairo after returning from Gaza, he said that in one shelter in Gaza, where 30,000 people were seeking refuge, there was one toilet for roughly every 400 people, meaning queues of up to five hours.
Israel directing civilians toward zones it has designated as safe — but which have no toilets or clean water — is creating “the perfect storm for disease outbreak,” said Elder.
“Israel is the occupying power: it’s they who have to provide food, water, medicine,” he added.
Fearful of being killed in an Israeli bombardment, families in Gaza were packing up and fleeing on Tuesday, heading for a pocket of land further south already crammed with displaced people without enough food, water or toilets.
Some were fleeing for the third or fourth time in less than two months.
Most of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people have been made homeless by the war,
and the new phase of displacement since a week-long
truce ended on Dec. 1 is worsening an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.
In Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where Israel was launching a long-awaited assault, Palestinians who had sought protection from airstrikes by camping in the grounds of the city’s Nasser Hospital were rolling up their tents and loading cars or donkey carts with piles of mats and blankets.
“We are getting ready to leave Khan Younis, heading to Rafah. We have been here for about 50 days,” said Abu Omar, a middle-aged man who left his home in the eastern part of the city and had been sheltering at the hospital camp with his family.
Rafah, further south on the border with Egypt, is one of the last remaining areas where the Israeli military has said civilians could go to escape the fighting, although it has been hit by many airstrikes.
“There is no safe place ... but at the end, we head to wherever we think there might be a bit of safety,” said Abu Omar, standing by a car whose roof was piled high with possessions.
But in Rafah, displaced people said their living conditions were horrible.
“There are no bathrooms. We cannot even wash if we want to pray. There is no place for us to wash or pray. If we want to wash our kids’ hands there is no place for that. There is not even a place where you can bake or get bread,” said Enas Mosleh, sitting with her children in a shelter made out of wooden slats and transparent plastic sheets.
“We spend all night hearing rockets and bombing. We are living between life and death. We may die at any moment,” she said, her face streaked with tears.

 


US sales of Palestinian keffiyehs soar, even as wearers targeted

Updated 11 min 59 sec ago
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US sales of Palestinian keffiyehs soar, even as wearers targeted

  • Hirbawi, which has patented its brand, sells scarves internationally via its US and German websites and on Amazon

WASHINGTON: A growing number of Americans are donning the keffiyeh, the distinctive patterned scarf that’s closely linked with Palestinians, to demand a ceasefire to Israel’s attacks on Gaza or to signal their support for Palestinians.
Sales of the scarves have jumped since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, US distributors say, even as keffiyehs have been forcibly removed by security forces at some protests and wearers report being targeted for verbal and physical abuse.
“It was like a light switch. All of a sudden, we had hundreds of people on the website simultaneously and buying whatever they could,” said Azar Aghayev, the US distributor for Hirbawi, which opened in 1961 and is the only manufacturer of keffiyehs left in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“In two days, the stock that we had was just gone, and not just gone, it was oversold.”
Hirbawi, which has patented its brand, sells scarves internationally via its US and German websites and on Amazon. All 40 variations on the US website, which include many in bright colors as well as the traditional black and white, are sold out, Aghayev said.
Unit sales of keffiyeh scarves have risen 75 percent in the 56 days between Oct. 7 and Dec. 2 on Amazon.com compared with the previous 56 days. Searches for “Palestinian scarf for women” rose by 159 percent in the three months to Dec. 4 compared with the previous three months.

 


UK’s Sunak tells Netanyahu in call of disappointment at new fighting in Gaza

Updated 50 min 54 sec ago
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UK’s Sunak tells Netanyahu in call of disappointment at new fighting in Gaza

  • Downing Street spokesperson: ‘The PM expressed disappointment about the breakdown of the pause in fighting in Gaza, which had allowed hostages to be released’
  • Spokesperson: ‘The leaders discussed urgent efforts to ensure all remaining hostages are safely freed and to allow any remaining British nationals in Gaza to leave’

LONDON: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expressed his disappointment about the breakdown of the pause in fighting in Gaza in a call with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, his office said in a readout.
“The Prime Minister spoke to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this afternoon. He expressed disappointment about the breakdown of the pause in fighting in Gaza, which had allowed hostages to be released,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.
“The leaders discussed urgent efforts to ensure all remaining hostages are safely freed and to allow any remaining British nationals in Gaza to leave.”
Sunak’s spokeperson said the British prime minister stressed the need for Israel to take greater care to protect civilians in Gaza and for humanitarian aid to be allowed to enter the Palestinian enclave.
Defense minister Grant Shapps said Britain was considering sending a military support vessel to provide medical and humanitarian aid in the Middle East.


Jordan’s King Abdullah says world should condemn any attempt to forcibly expel Palestinians

Updated 05 December 2023
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Jordan’s King Abdullah says world should condemn any attempt to forcibly expel Palestinians

  • Talks with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides focused on the need to increase efforts to deliver humanitarian aid and relief to the embattled civilians living in Gaza
  • King Abdullah told Christodoulides there would be dangerous consequences from any attempt to forcibly push Palestinians en masse from their land

AMMAN: Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Tuesday the world should condemn any attempt by Israel to create conditions that would forcibly displace Palestinians within the war-devastated Gaza Strip or outside its borders.
In remarks carried by state media after a meeting with the Cypriot president in Amman, the monarch again called for an immediate cease-fire and warned that Israel’s relentless bombing campaign was leading to a “dangerous deterioration” in the situation.
Talks with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides focused on the need to increase efforts to deliver humanitarian aid and relief to the embattled civilians living in Gaza.
Abdullah has lobbied Western leaders to pile pressure on Israel to allow an uninterrupted flow of aid and open crossings it controls to bring in sufficient level of aid needed.
Israel now controls the volume and nature of aid entering to over 2.3 million inhabitants under siege, according to UN officials and humanitarian workers.
UNRWA officials say only a trickle of the aid the enclave needs is getting through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt which NGOs and officials say can only handle a fraction of the needs.
Israel started its campaign in retribution for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas fighters who rampaged through Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israel’s tally.
Israeli bombardments have killed nearly 16,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health ministry figures, and driven 80 percent of the population from their homes.
King Abdullah told Christodoulides there would be dangerous consequences from any attempt to forcibly push Palestinians en masse from their land while it maintained security control, officials said.
Officials also fear wider violence in the West Bank, which Jordan borders, as settler attacks on Palestinian civilians, confiscation of land and Israeli military raids mount.
It could create circumstances that could encourage Israel to forcibly push tens of thousands of Palestians across the Jordan River.
Officials say the forcible expulsion of Palestinians would amount to a declaration of war and prompt Jordan to suspend its peace treaty with Israel.
On Tuesday, Amman condemned Israel’s move to build new settlements in Arab East Jerusalem, the part of the contested city that was seized along with the West Bank in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the UN considers occupied territory..
“Israel’s expansion of Jewish settlement building on land it occupied and the confiscation of territory are a flagrant violation of international law” and dimmed any prospects of peace, said Sufain Qudah, spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry.


Egypt’s FM heads to US for talks with top officials

Updated 05 December 2023
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Egypt’s FM heads to US for talks with top officials

  • Shoukry will meet Congress foreign policy committee officials with the aim of advancing and strengthening strategic relations
  • Visit will also include talks with a number of American think tanks and research centers

CAIRO: Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry traveled to the US on Tuesday to meet House of Representatives and Senate members in Washington.

Shoukry will meet Congress foreign policy committee officials with the aim of advancing and strengthening strategic relations, according to Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid.

The visit will also include talks with a number of American think tanks and research centers, in addition to media engagements, he said.

Abu Zeid said that Shoukry will also join an Arab-Islamic ministerial committee meeting on Dec. 7.

The committee will hold meetings with the US secretary of state, a number of Congress members and the US media in an effort to stop the war in Gaza, in line with the mandate issued by the recent Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit.

Meanwhile, Shoukry affirmed Egypt’s categorical rejection of attempts to force Palestinians out of Gaza.

The foreign minister made the remarks during a phone call with Colombian counterpart Alvaro Leyva.

Shoukry and Leyva discussed the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, the necessity of an immediate ceasefire and the opportunity to establish humanitarian truces to bring in aid.