Palestine MP: Stealing lands does not change reality on the ground

Activists gather for a demonstration to protest against the eviction of Palestinian families from their homes and illegal settlements in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, East Jerusalem on 11 February 2022. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]

Palestinian MP, Ahmad Attoun, said yesterday that Israel’s theft of Palestinian land in Jerusalem does not change the reality on the ground, the Palestinian Information Centre reported.

His remarks came following an Israeli Planning and Construction Committee’s decision to steal the land of the centuries-old Muslim graveyard located east of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque – Al-Yusufiyah Cemetery.

The MP, who has been expelled from Jerusalem by the occupation, said that “stealing” the land reflects Israel’s persistence to “judaise Jerusalem’s Old City and change its identity.”

“This is a systematic behaviour adopted to Judaise the Holy City, impose the Israeli narrative and carry out aggression on the Palestinian Islamic heritage and signs of its civilisation.”

Attoun said that bulldozing Al-Yusufiyah Cemetery and exhuming its graves before the eyes of the world while everyone remains silent “is appalling.”

The Palestinian MP called for official and popular action across the Palestinian territories and the Arab and Muslim world against the Israeli measure.

He stressed that the Israeli occupation will not be able to erase the Palestinian heritage in Jerusalem “because Jerusalem is part of our faith.”

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