NABLUS, Palestinian Territories: Around 1,500 Israeli Jews prayed at a contested tomb in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday morning, and a settler leader hailed an “important step” toward establishing Israeli sovereignty over the site.
Jews believe Joseph’s Tomb in the north of the Palestinian territory is the burial site of the Biblical patriarch Joseph. Muslims consider it the burial place of a local religious figure.
The entry of Jewish pilgrims often sparks clashes with Palestinians, who claim the visits are a provocation.
Thursday’s prayer was exceptional as worshippers performed the Jewish morning service known as the Shacharit, which is celebrated after sunrise.
For a quarter of a decade, Israeli authorities have only allowed Jews to come and pray at the site at night.
“This is a significant and important step toward... ensuring the full return of the people of Israel and the State of Israel to this holy place,” said Yossi Dagan, the head of the Shomron regional council which administers Israeli settlements in the northern West Bank.
“For the first time in 25 years, Jews prayed in broad daylight at Joseph’s Tomb,” the council said in a statement.
The tomb lies within the built up area of Nablus in the West Bank’s Area A, which under the Oslo Accords signed in the 1990s falls under the administration of the Palestinian Authority.
Since the Israeli military vacated the site in 2000, Jewish pilgrims can only visit in groups escorted by troops.
AFP footage from the site on Thursday morning showed crowds of Jewish pilgrims praying, some wearing small leather boxes called tefillin, containing religious verses, on their heads.
The Israeli army has long supervised the entry of ultra-Orthodox Jews for a nighttime prayer on the first day of each month of the Hebrew calendar.
But Israeli media reported that, in December, Defense Minister Israel Katz had issued directives to the military to allow more visits to the tomb and not only at night.
Previously, buses of visitors escorted by the army had to leave the site by 4:00 am at the latest.
An AFP journalist at the scene said around 25 full buses arrived during the night carrying ultra-nationalists from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, as well as ultra-Orthodox Jews from settlements and from inside Israel.
The buses departed at 7:00 am, escorted by military vehicles, the journalist said.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and Israeli settlements there are considered illegal under international law.
An Israeli military spokesperson told AFP that “all was done according to the orders of the political echelon, not an army initiative.”
“The political echelon decided to extend the opening hours and (the military) is subordinate to their instructions.”
Israeli settler leader lauds Jewish prayer at contested West Bank tomb
https://arab.news/rh5zf
Israeli settler leader lauds Jewish prayer at contested West Bank tomb
- The entry of Jewish pilgrims often sparks clashes with Palestinian
- Thursday’s prayer was exceptional as worshippers performed the Jewish morning service known as the Shacharit
Egyptian woman faces death threats for filming alleged harasser
- Case revives longstanding national debate in Egypt over harassment and violence against women
- A 2013 UN study found that 99.3 percent of Egyptian women reported experiencing harassment
CAIRO: A young Egyptian woman is facing death threats after posting a video showing the face of a man she says repeatedly harassed her, reviving debate over how victims are treated in the country.
Mariam Shawky, an actress in her twenties, filmed the man aboard a crowded Cairo bus earlier this week, accusing him of stalking and harassing her near her workplace on multiple occasions.
“This time, he followed me on the bus,” Shawky, who has been dubbed “the bus girl” by local media, said in a clip posted on TikTok.
“He kept harassing me,” added the woman, who did not respond to an AFP request for comment.
Hoping other passengers would intervene, Shawky instead found herself isolated. The video shows several men at the back of the bus staring at her coldly as she confronts her alleged harasser.
The man mocks her appearance, calls her “trash,” questions her clothing and moves toward her in what appears to be a threatening manner.
No one steps in to help. One male passenger, holding prayer beads, orders her to sit down and be quiet, while another gently restrains the man but does not defend Shawky.
Death threats
As the video spread across social media, the woman received a brief flurry of support, but it was quickly overwhelmed by a torrent of abuse.
Some high-profile public figures fueled the backlash.
Singer Hassan Shakosh suggested she had provoked the situation by wearing a piercing, saying it was “obvious what she was looking for.”
Online, the comments were more extreme. “I’ll be the first to kill you,” one user wrote. “If you were killed, no one would mourn you,” said another.
The case has revived a longstanding national debate in Egypt over harassment and violence against women.
A 2013 UN study found that 99.3 percent of Egyptian women reported experiencing harassment, with more than 80 percent saying they faced it regularly on public transport.
That same year, widespread protests against sexual violence rocked the Egyptian capital.
In 2014, a law criminalizing street harassment was passed. However, progress since then has been limited. Enforcement remains inconsistent and authorities have never released figures on the number of convictions.
Public concern spiked after previous high-profile incidents, including the 2022 killing of university student Nayera Ashraf, stabbed to death by a man whose advances she had rejected.
The perpetrator was executed, yet at the time “some asked for his release,” said prominent Egyptian feminist activist Nadeen Ashraf, whose social-media campaigning helped spark Egypt’s MeToo movement in 2020.
Denials
In the latest case, the authorities moved to act even though the bus company denied any incident had taken place in a statement later reissued by the Ministry of Transport.
The Interior Ministry said that the man seen in the video had been “identified and arrested” the day after the clip went viral.
Confronted with the footage, he denied both the harassment and ever having met the woman before, according to the ministry.
Local media reported he was later released on bail of 1,000 Egyptian pounds (around $20), before being detained again over a pre-existing loan case.
His lawyer has called for a psychiatric evaluation of Shawky, accusing her of damaging Egypt’s reputation.
These images tell “the whole world that there are harassers in Egypt and that Egyptian men encourage harassment, defend it and remain silent,” said lawyer Ali Fayez on Facebook.
Ashraf told AFP that the case revealed above all “a systemic and structural problem.”
She said such incidents were “never taken seriously” and that blame was almost always shifted onto women’s appearance.
“If the woman is veiled, they’ll say her clothes are tight. And if her hair is uncovered, they’ll look at her hair. And even if she wears a niqab, they’ll say she’s wearing makeup.”
“There will always be something.”
