Qatar slams incursion of Al-Aqsa by Israeli forces

Qatar has strongly deplored and condemned the violation of the holy sites of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the latest of which was the stormy and barbaric incursion carried out by the Israeli occupation forces Friday.

In a statement Friday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that because the Israeli occupation forces have not legally or morally deterred nor been under international pressure, they deliberately choose the holiest times and places in order to provoke the feelings of 1.5bn Muslims in full view of the world.

This violation comes shortly after passing the racist law, which Israel called the “Nation Law”, to emphasise the exclusionary and racist nature of this sinful occupation, that has a long history of decades of encroachment on both Islamic and Christian holy sites, the statement added.

The Foreign Ministry’s statement called on the Arab and Islamic countries and the international community to stand united to stop the Israeli arrogance, tampering of innocent lives, violating basic human right to freedom of worship and provoking the feelings of all Muslims in the world.

Israeli troopers entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest shrine in Islam, and carried out arrests Friday.

The rare raid, on a site that is an emblem of Palestinians’ statehood hopes and a frequent catalyst of their conflict with Israel, came as medics in Gaza said Israeli army gunfire killed two people — including a boy — during a weekly border protest.

There was no immediate word of any violence in the mosque, whose older male worshippers said they had been allowed to exit after being searched.

Witnesses later saw around 20 younger men detained by police, and said mosque prayers later resumed.

Police put the number of arrests at 24, and said four of its officers were injured in the melee.

Muslim authorities said dozens of people were hurt by Israeli police stun grenades.

“The continued Israeli attacks against occupied Jerusalem will increase tensions and will drag the region into a religious war that we have long warned against,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s office said in a statement.

In Gaza, medics said a man and a 14-year-old boy were killed and dozens wounded by army fire, bringing to 154 the Palestinian death toll during demonstrations launched on March 30 to demand rights to land lost to Israel in the 1948 war of its founding.

The dead man, 43-year-old Ghazi Abu Mustafa, was brought to a hospital tent staffed by his wife, a medic, who collapsed when she discovered him among the casualties, her colleagues said.

The four months of Gaza tensions have also seen cross-border shelling and gunfire exchange.

Over the last week, an Israeli soldier was killed and another wounded by what the army said were Gaza snipers, and seven Hamas gunmen died in air strikes.

Israel has lost tracts of farmland and forests to fires set by kites and helium balloons, laden with incendiary material and flown over from Gaza.

The Israelis have responded by preventing the entry of non-essential commercial goods to Gaza.

In the occupied West Bank, another territory where Palestinians want independence, a teeanged Palestinian knifed a Jewish settler to death and wounded two others on Thursday before being shot and killed.

Locals said that Israeli troops, raiding the assailant’s village on Friday, wounded a man.

أعربت دولة قطر عن استهجانها واستنكارها وإدانتها بأشد العبارات انتهاك الحرمات المقدسة للمسجد الأقصى المبارك والتي كان آخرها الاقتحام الأرعن والهمجي الذي نفذته قوات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي اليوم.

وقالت وزارة الخارجية، في بيان اليوم، ” يبدو أن قوات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي لما لم تجد لها رادعا من وازعٍ أخلاقي أو ضغط دولي وقانوني، تتعمد اختيار أقدس الأوقات وأشرف البقاع إمعانا منها في استفزاز مشاعر مليار ونصف المليار مسلم على مرأى ومسمع من العالم”.

وأضاف البيان “يأتي هذا الانتهاك بعد فترة وجيزة من إقرار القانون العنصري الذي أطلقت عليه إسرائيل (قانون القومية)، ليؤكد على الطبيعة الإقصائية والعنصرية لهذا الاحتلال الآثم، احتلال يحظى بسجل حافل عبر العقود بالتعدي على المقدسات الإسلامية والمسيحية على حد سواء”.

ودعا بيان الخارجية الدول العربية والإسلامية والمجتمع الدولي للوقوف صفا واحدا لإيقاف هذا الصلف الإسرائيلي والعبث الذي يزهق أرواح الأبرياء وينتهك أبسط حقوق الإنسان في حرية العبادة ويستفز مشاعر جميع مسلمي العالم.