9 May 2009

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The prominent Muslim leader in the 1948-occupied Palestinian lands Shiekh Raed Salah has exposed on Thursday an Israeli scheme prepared and crystallized by five Israeli ministries, which targets the Muslim identity of Jerusalem.

In a press conference he held in the city's suburb of Sheikh Jarrah, Salah asserted, "There is a broad Zionist scheme being prepared with the aim to hit the social fabric in Sheikh Jarrah suburb, Wadi Al-Joz, and Sawwana with the aim to cordon the old city, and to expand 32 settlement colonies around the Aqsa Mosque in preparation to ultimately control it".

He also disclosed that the city's Jewish municipal administration started to survey Palestinian homes in the occupied city to find out any extension in the building permits in order to justify the demolition of that extension or even of reducing the entire house to rubbles.

He described numbers of the Palestinian homes that are threatened with demolition in Jerusalem as "horrifying", adding that the municipal engineers were preparing new plans to build more Jewish settlements on the ruins of the Palestinian homes.

Moreover, Salah pointed out that a Jewish organization interested in constructing more Jewish colonies in the city had offered a Palestinian Jerusalemite $ 600,000 for every square meter of his real estate.

"International Zionism, using its different arms, is working hard to achieve its objectives in the holy city amidst the passive and unexplainable silence," Salah said.

Tens of Palestinian homes in the occupied city were demolished recently under false Israeli allegations, turning hundreds of Palestinian Jerusalemite families homeless. The IOA, however, insisted on pursuing the demolition policy despite calls from the UN to halt them.

Hamdan calls for withdrawing the Arab initiative

Osama Hamdan, the representative of the Hamas Movement in Lebanon, has asked the Arab countries to drop the Arab peace initiative rather than drop the Palestinian refugees' right of return as demanded by Israel and the American administration.

He told Al-Quds TV satellite channel on Thursday that the Arab countries should rather support resistance that could lead to changing the Israeli occupation authority's' stands.

Hamdan said that Hamas absolutely rejects any tampering with the right of return, which, he said, is a matter involving millions of Palestinians within and outside Palestine.

He expressed surprise at the Arab insistence on the peace initiative despite the Israeli rejection of it, noting that the new Israeli coalition government is based on refusing negotiations on Jerusalem and continuation of the settlement and building of the separation wall.

If the Arabs agreed to drop the right of return Israel would ask for dropping more Palestinian rights and find legal formulas to market them, the Hamas leader underlined.

Shifting to another issue, Hamdan highlighted that his Movement was ready to deal positively with the national dialog talks but would not bow to foreign conditions, adding that Hamas had its alternatives in the event the dialog failed to end the siege on Gaza.