The Al-Aqsa Foundation for the Waqf and Heritage announced on Wednesday that they have recently noticed that the “Israeli Occupation” of Temple Mount is implementing around- the-clock operations for speedy and extensive revamping of the remaining part of the Western Wall leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the west.
Al-Aqsa Foundation for the Waqf and Heritage called on the Arab and Islamic countries to organize as many events as possible to support Al-Aqsa mosque and to address the occupation attacks against the mosque and the entire city of Jerusalem.
The aim of the Israelis, according to this group, which is closely associated with the Al Quds Foundation, is to transform these areas into segregated prayer enclosures and synagogues for Jewish women, transforming the remnants of an old mosque into a Synagogue. For ladies.
Sounds like a plan…
Aqsa Foundation, which has been monitoring events around the Western gate, the Mughrabi Gate, to the right of the Kotel, affirmed that “the Israeli occupation and its executive arm has been performing speedy and extensive ‘revamp and rehab’ operations on the Mughrabi Gate, especially in the gaps in the middle of the road, where the ‘Occupation’ has been restoring ancient arches and other constructs, which are part of Islamic Heritage Buildings. Also they have been restoring interior and exterior arches and doors and external structures, which include strengthening the stones of certain walls, especially in the left wall of the road at the junction with the Western Wall. The ‘Occupation’ rehabilitation operations also include tiling the floors, both within and outside the wall adjacent to the road, as well as operations to support columns. At the same time, the ‘Israeli Occupation’ continues slow demolition of the remaining upper part of the road to the Western Gate, thus destroying parts of ancient Islamic monuments.”
A bunch of busy bees, those Israeli occupiers. And the concept of conquest by fixing and restoring is pretty mind boggling.
If you look at the many images shown on the foundation’s website, you’ll realize at once what they’re describing.
Nadav Shragai, writing last fall for The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, explained that during the winter of 2004, the sand embankment in Jerusalem’s Old City known as the Mughrabi Ascent – which provides access to the Mughrabi Gate of the Temple Mount from the area of the Western Wall – collapsed due to rainstorms, snow, and a minor earthquake. The Mughrabi Gate is the only entranceway for non-Muslim visitors to the mount, and it also provides access for Israeli security forces in time of emergency.
After the collapse, Shragai continued, Israel hastened to erect a temporary wooden bridge on the spot. Nearly eight years later, Israel was preparing to replace the hazardous, temporary bridge with a more stable, permanent bridge. This has elicited severe criticism and baseless incitement against the State of Israel in radical Muslim circles, who accuse Israel of endangering the mosques on the Temple Mount and scheming to seek their collapse as part of a plot to Judaize Jerusalem.
Shragai insists that the erection of a new bridge is legal both according to Israeli and international law. And now, after repeated urging by Jerusalem Municipal Engineer Shlomo Eshkol that the temporary bridge be dismantled and a permanent bridge be built, it appears that construction has begun, if not on a permanent than on a more reliable, temporary bridge.
The Aqsa Foundation suggested that the “Occupation” is nearing completion of the “rehabilitation” and will soon be opening a synagogue “for Jewish Women” and will also convert some of the nearby spaces to reserve them, too, for Jewish women, as part of a scheme to increase the number of Israeli and foreign visitors to the Buraq, or the way the “Occupation” calls it, the “Western Wall.”
Have a happy occupation, and don’t forget to send your wives and daughters up to the ladies shul, up above the Kotel.
Great view from up there.
Thanks to Yisrael Medad for the tip.
And thanks to Salome Worch (JooJoon) for translating the original Arabic text.