The battle for Al-Aqsa Compound

          The battle for Al-Aqsa Compound
Israeli soldiers storm Al-Aqsa compound,Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemns "attack" on Al-Aqsa following clashes at one of Islam's holiest sites.
Clashes have erupted after a number of Israeli soldiers entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, police and witnesses said.
The Israeli security personnel used tear gas and stun grenades, as they entered the compound to arrest what they called Palestinian "stone throwers".

          Stun grenades & tear gas: Israeli forces storm Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem


Omar Kiswani, the manager of Al-Aqsa Mosque, told Al Jazeera that 80 "Jewish settlers" protected by the Israeli police, attacked the mosque when confronted by Palestinian volunteer guards.
A statement issued by the Israeli police said that "masked protesters who were inside the mosque threw stones and fireworks at police".

A Muslim witness accused police of entering the mosque and causing damage, saying prayer mats were partially burned.
Clashes later continued outside the mosque complex, with police firing tear gas and stun grenades.
Israeli security forces closed the mosque's compound to worshippers following the clashes that come just hours before the start of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.

"The presidency strongly condemns the attack by the occupier's military and police against the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the aggression against the faithful who were there," a statement from his office said.
Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said that the Israeli police were being dishonest.

"The Israeli police are lying, they have lied before and they are lying again," he said."I think what happened today is an act of aggression on the part of the Israeli army," he said, adding that right-wing Jewish settlers provoked Palestinians when they entered the mosque.

Al Jazeera's Scott Heidler, reporting from Jerusalem, said there are some reports that Jewish groups and Jewish activists who are not supposed to pray in the Al-Aqsa compound got in there, and this is what could have triggered the clashes.

"We are hearing that the minister of agriculture, a member of a right-wing political party here in Israel, was waiting to get into the compound this morning. If that directly sparked what we saw, it is difficult to say," Heidler said.

The disturbances came with tensions running high after Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon last week banned two Muslim groups from entering the mosque compound - Islam's third holiest site.

Israel seized East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, in the Six Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community.
On Monday, chunks of rock still peppered the entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest site. Volunteers worked to remove shards of glass and metal, but parts of the crimson and gold carpet were charred by stun grenades hurled into the holy site by Israeli forces, who also fired rubber-coated metal bullets at Muslim worshippers.

This has become a reoccurring scene, with ominous implications, which has ignited Palestinian fears of an Israeli takeover of the holy esplanade. Jews call the esplanade the Temple Mount and consider it their holiest site, and Muslims refer to it as the Noble Sanctuary or al-Haram al-Sharif.

 Over time, the discussion over entry to the compound has shifted to one focusing on freedom of worship - with Israeli groups arguing that Jews, like Muslims, should be allowed to pray there.

"This is not about prayer,” she argued. "We are worried by the entry of extremists who want to demolish our mosque and build their temple. There's been an increase in the number of attempts to do so in recent years."

In 1990, Israeli border police killed 22 Palestinians during a demonstration triggered by an attempt by Jewish extremists to lay the cornerstone for a new temple in the compound.

Several years earlier, two members of an organisation called the Jewish Underground (who were founding figures in the pro-settlement Gush Emunim movement), were caught trying to bomb the two sites with the hope that the Third Temple would be built on their ruins.

The issue of the compound was recently addressed by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, which suggested that Jews wishing to visit should be permitted to do so without being allowed to pray. "Access for all communities is the best way to ensure access for each," the report states.

The group reported discussions between Israel and Jordan, which has custodial rights at the compound, over the possibility of allowing non-Muslim visitors. There's been no confirmation on the Jordanian side to this report, and an Israeli official in the Israeli prime minister's office has denied it, according to Israeli daily Haaretz. "There are no negotiations and no change in the status quo at the Temple Mount," the official said.

 Jerusalem's Old City, founded around 4,000 BC, is an area of great significance to people from the three monotheistic religions: Islam, Judaism and Christianity. It is divided into four quarters (Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Armenian) and is surrounded by walls. Eleven gates lead into the Old City, and seven of these are open today.
Inside the Old City, a World Heritage site, lies al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, a 35-acre compound that comprises Islam's third holiest site, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, al-Aqsa mosque. The compound is also home to the Dome of the Rock, a revered site believed to be where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

Since Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in June 1967, the affairs of the Noble Sanctuary have been run by an Islamic trusteeship, supported by the Jordanian government, known as the Waqf. Israel still maintains what it believes to be its right to sovereignty over the area after it annexed the eastern part of the city.

In addition to running schools and charities in Jerusalem, the Waqf maintains guards at the entrances to the compound, with the exception of the Mughrabi Gate. This gate (also known as Bab al-Magharbeh or Dung Gate) is connected by a bridge to an open-air plaza that was created when Israel demolished the Mughrabi (Moroccan) Quarter in 1967.

This plaza lies in front of the Western (Wailing) Wall, which Jews believe is the last remnant of the Second Temple, a place of Jewish worship that was destroyed by the Roman rulers of Jerusalem centuries ago. Jewish tradition maintains that a Third Temple will be rebuilt on the Noble Sanctuary, referred to in Judaism as the Temple Mount.

The Noble Sanctuary compound is currently allowed for Muslim prayer alone, but Israeli soldiers regularly escort Jewish Israeli visitors to the site. These incursions are often performed under armed guard, and provoke violent clashes between the Israeli security forces and Palestinians. The Israeli authorities also regularly impose strict rules on Palestinian access to the Noble Sanctuary, frequently forbidding all men under 40 (at times under 50) years of age from entering.

Jerusalem: Hitting Home

The city of Jerusalem lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and property, housing and Israeli settlements are burning issues. The Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem has forced thousands of Palestinians from their homes and created 
a serious housing shortage. 

Since 1967, the Palestinian population has quadrupled, climbing to over 300,000 - nearly 40 percent of the population. Yet the Israeli municipal authorities in East Jerusalem deem that Palestinians can build property on only nine percent of the land.

          Al Jazeera World - Jerusalem Hitting Home



For Palestinians, construction permits are prohibitively expensive and bureaucratic processes make them difficult to obtain. Many Palestinians have had no choice but to build their own homes without permits, even with the threat of demolition hanging over their heads.

Israel has now declared around 20,000 of these buildings to be illegal and has ordered their demolition.
Rather than paying the high costs of fighting demolition orders in court, or paying the fines for getting Israeli crews to pull down their homes, Palestinian families are making the difficult choice to bring them down themselves. Forced to demolish their own homes, many have been made homeless, or pushed away from the city centre. Others have chosen to remain in the ruins of the properties they themselves have pulled down.
Jerusalem: Hitting Home examines how these demolitions are not just changing the face of the city but also the lives of the people who live there.

The film follows three families who have been forced to take hammers to their own homes. It traces the events that led to the demolitions, where the families have gone afterwards, and the emotional and economic impact it has had on them. The filmmaker also charts how city planning and municipal policies have led to a set of building rules that many argue are pushing Palestinians towards the outskirts of the city, disrupting their lives and shifting the city's demographics in favour of the Israeli majority.

The architecture of violence

   

                 The Architecture Of Violence

Eyal Weizman explains architecture's key role in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the evolution of urban warfare.

          Rebel Architecture - The architecture of violence


On a journey across the settlements and roads of the West Bank and along the Separation Wall, Israeli architect Eyal Weizman demonstrates how architecture is central to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
"Architecture and the built environment is a kind of a slow violence. The occupation is an environment that was conceived to strangulate Palestinian communities, villages and towns, to create an environment that would be unliveable for the people there," says Weizman.

Local Israelis and Palestinians explain how it feels to live in a landscape where everything, from walls and roads, terraces and sewage, to settlements and surveillance are designed to ensure the separation of the two peoples, while simultaneously maintaining control.

Eyal's work on the architecture of occupation has led him to understand the discipline's role in modern urban warfare. Visiting Nablus and Jenin, he explains how the Israeli army pioneered a new kind of modern urban warfare through its deep understanding of architecture.

But Weizman has found a way for architecture to resist. His latest project, Forensic Architecture, is way of turning a building's military wounds into evidence to be used against the state for the investigation of war crimes, with the aid of innovative architectural and visual technologies.

Sussex students vote overwhelmingly to boycott Israel goods over Gaza conflict

Sussex students vote overwhelmingly to boycott Israel goods over Gaza conflict

Students at Britain’s University of Sussex have voted overwhelmingly in favor of boycotting Israeli goods on campus in response to the conflict in Gaza last summer.

The referendum requires the commercial arms of the students’ union, such as shops and restaurants, to stop buying products made in Israel.

It also means the students’ union will intensify its lobbying of the University of Sussex in the hope that the institution will join the boycott.

The referendum saw 806 students, 68 percent of all votes cast, vote in favor of joining the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

Some 373 students voted against the proposition, which follows a similar vote from students at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London earlier this month, which backed an academic boycott of Israel.

Speaking to RT, Roua Naboulsi, an English Literature and Media Studies student involved in the BDS campaign, said the run-up to the vote was a “very stressful and tiring” time.

“We were constantly campaigning. We were on campus every day for five hours,” she said.

Naboulsi, 20, said a large part of the campaign was about educating students.

“So many people don’t know what’s happening in Palestine,” she said.

Involved in the Palestine support movement for three years, Naboulsi said student involvement in the cause had spiked since Israel’s military operation in Gaza last summer.

The United Nations reports that 2,220 Palestinian civilians and 66 Israeli soldiers died in the conflict, which lasted for six weeks.

The University of Sussex’s Friends of Palestine Society saw its number of regularly active members increase from five to 20.

Naboulsi, who is of Lebanese descent, said the BDS campaign experienced no hostility from people with opposing views on campus.

“We expected some [hostility] but we got barely any. We didn’t have much of an opposition either,” she added.

By the end of the week’s campaigning only one pro-Israel student was left to represent the counter view, she said.

Michael Segalov, Communications Officer at Sussex Students’ Union, said the student body was joining a “growing number of Unions, including the National Union of Students, to take such action.”

Speaking to RT, he said: “As a democratic organization, all Students' Union policies come from our membership. With nearly 70 percent of students voting to endorse the BDS movement, this is a clear sign of what Sussex students want.”

“Over the coming weeks, we will be working closely with students at Sussex to put our policies into action, including lobbying the University of Sussex to follow our lead. We are already identifying contracts that [the] University has, and relationships with organizations, that we hope to be reviewed,” he added.