issue no 67

| 1

Issue No : 67 28th October, 2013

Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia | 1


PalestinianPalestinianP CulturalCulturalC Organization MalaysiaMalaysiaM

2 |


Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia

Palestinian Cultural

Organization Malaysia

Read In This Report

P11

Alaa Hammad continues his hunger strike since 177 days

P 4

P 6

P 8

10,000 Israelis could lose jobs

due to budget cuts

P12

Israel enters dangerous uncharted territory in

JerusalemBy:

Dr. Daud Abdullah

P10

Israeli Knessetdiscusses bill to divide

al-Aqsa mosque

Israeli analyst: There is a golden opportunity to defeat

Hamas with Egypt›s help

Israel allows Egyptian bombers to fly over Gaza

Hamas claims responsibility for “Khan Younis Tunnel”PA forces arrest Hamas cell planning drone attack on Israel

Hamas warns of Israeli schemes targeting al-Aqsa mosque

| 3



CONTENTS

News of Palestine

Articles & Analyses

Israel enters dangerous uncharted territory in Jerusalem 12

Israeli Knesset discusses bill to divide al-Aqsa mosque 4

Sheikh Raed Salah: “The coup against Morsi was a coup against 5

Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque”

Israeli analyst: There is a golden opportunity to defeat 6 Hamas with Egypt›s help

International organization calls for immediate end to Gaza siege 7

PA forces arrest Hamas cell planning drone attack on Israel 8

No one concedes his rights like Abbas, claims Peres 9

Resistance fighter killed in exchange of fire with IOF soldiers 9

Alaa Hammad continues his hunger strike since 177 days 10

10,000 Israelis could lose jobs due to budget cuts 11

Israel Insider

4 |



News of Palestine

24/10/2013Al-Aqsa Foundation for En-dowment and Heritage stated that members of Likud party led by the Deputy Knesset Speaker Moshe Feiglin have proposed a bill to divide the Al-Aqsa Mosque temporally and spatially between Mus-lims and Jews. The proposal is going to be approved by the Israeli government and Knesset in the coming days in cooperation with the Inter-nal Affairs and Environment Committee, the foundation pointed out.Al-Aqsa Foundation stressed that al-Aqsa mosque with its 144 dunums both above the ground and below belongs to Muslims only and no one but them has right in it. The Foundation warned of the Is-raeli bill, saying that it came as part of Israeli escalated violations and threats against al-Aqsa mosque. Al-Aqsa Foundation has ob-tained a detailed copy of the proposal according to which Jews would be able to visit al-Aqsa Mosque to perform Talmudic rituals.The extremist organization Manhigut Yehudit, a wing of the ruling Likud party, is

planned to submit the bill to the Internal Affairs and Environ-ment Committee on Wednesday under the title of «Proposal to Manage the Temple Mount».For its part, Hamas movement expressed its total rejection of the Israeli Knesset›s proposal to divide al-Aqsa mosque between Muslim and Jewish worshipers temporally and spatially.The Islamic movement warned the occupation of approving such bill, considering it a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the mosque and a serious provoca-

Israeli Knesset discusses bill to divide al-Aqsa mosque

tion to the Muslims› religious feelings around the world.The movement stressed the need to unite the Palestinian Arab and Islamic efforts in de-fense of the holy site in light of the serious Israeli schemes to impose a fait accompli in al-Aqsa mosque.Hamas called on the Arab and Islamic world to bear their re-sponsibility towards the Islam-ic Waqf and to put an end to Israeli attacks against it.

Source: Agencies

Hamas warns of Israeli schemes targeting al-Aqsa mosque

| 5



Palestinian Cultural

Organization Malaysia

Sheikh Raed Salah: “The coup against Morsi was a coup against Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque”

24/10/2013The head of the Islamic movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, said on Wednesday that the relation-ship between the Israeli occupation and the leaders of the military coup in Egypt has undermined ef-forts to resist the Judaisation of Jerusalem.Appearing on an episode of Al-Jazeera›s popu-lar weekly show «Without Borders» present-ed by Ahmed Mansour, Salah asserted that: «These efforts were done and should be done by the ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi.»Salah condemned the «vicious» relationship between the Israeli occupation and the lead-ers of the military coup in Egypt, charging that «the Israeli occupation asked the army to carry out a coup against the freely elected president Mohamed Morsi.»He added: «The Israeli occupation supported the perpetrators of the coup against Morsi be-cause he had strongly backed projects in support of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the city of Jerusalem.»The Sheikh, who has devoted his life to defend-ing Jerusalem, explained that: «The coup against Morsi was a coup against Jerusalem and Al-Aq-sa Mosque. Egypt was offering unlimited sup-port to Al-Aqsa and unlimited effort to stop the Judaisation of Jerusalem during Morsi›s reign.»Salah said that he was invited by Morsi to visit Egypt several times, and blamed members of the «deep state» for undermining his visits.He affirmed that Morsi used to frequently phone

him to get the latest updates about the situation in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque. «He was prepar-ing for many projects in support of the Mosque and the Holy City,» he said.The Sheikh also added that: «Morsi was preparing a generation of preachers to carry the issue of Al-Aqsa Mosque in their hearts in order to start bet-ter mobilising the public in support of the Mosque and the Holy City.» Source: MEMO

6 |



Israeli analyst: There is a golden opportunity to defeat Hamas with Egypt›s help

23/10/2013The famous Israeli analyst of Arab affairs, Ehud Yaari, is urg-ing Israel to take advantage of the historical situation that the Arab region is going through to «defeat» Hamas with the help of Egypt.

Yaari, a commentator on Is-raeli television›s Channel Two, also said in an interview with Maariv newspaper that Al-Sisi›s actions are «excessive» and have not only affected the Islamists, but also figures of the liberal opposition.

In regards to the Gaza Strip and Hamas, he stressed that there is now a golden opportunity to

topple Hamas in Gaza. He called on Israel to take advantage of this and said, «Today we can clearly see a mutual interest between Is-rael and Egypt.»

On the other hand, Israel has given permission for Egyptian fighter-bombers to fly over the Gaza Strip twice within a week, Israeli TV Channel 2 has said. Egyptian F16s were allowed to fly over the border «to moni-tor weapons› smuggling», it was claimed. Egypt has said that the flights were part of the campaign against «terrorism» in the Sinai Peninsula.

The terms of the 1979 Camp Da-

vid Treaty signed by Egypt and Israel, said El-Shaab newspa-per, make it clear that the Si-nai is to be an arms-free zone, apart from a small border force. Although 18 aircraft were counted flying over the border by witnesses, 48 hours later the Egyptian military denied that this had happened.

El-Shaab reminded its read-ers that Israel allowed Egyp-tian Apache attack helicopters to fly over Gaza in September in a move against what were claimed at the time to be «arms caches».

Source: Agencies

Israel allows Egyptian bombers to fly over Gaza

| 7



26/10/2013The international organization Partners for Peace & Develop-ment for Palestinians (PPDP) has called for an immediate end to the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip.

It said in a statement on Friday, “For the last eight years, the Gaza Strip has been under a harsh siege imposed by the Is-raeli occupation forces which cause humanitarian crises leading to the deterioration of the people’s life conditions”.

The PPDP statement added, “The Gaza Strip situation was affected negatively by the changes and events in Egypt, especially closing the Rafah crossing that connects the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with the outside world, after excluding the Erez checking point controlled by the Israeli Occupation Authorities. The Rafah crossing - as well as the Egyptian side generally - is in-deed considered as the lifeline for the Palestinians importing their basic food, construction materials and fuel”.

The PPDP, which organizes the Miles of Smiles aid con-voys to Gaza, said, “In the light

International organization calls for immediate end to Gaza siege

of these developments which are deteriorating day after day para-lyzing all sectors of life in Gaza, the Miles of Smiles calls for im-mediate remove of the siege on Gaza, the Miles of Smiles urges the Egyptian authorities to stand responsible towards their broth-ers in Palestine and allow the aid and solidarity convoys to enter Gaza”.

The London-based organization pointed out that 30% of medi-cines were out of stock in Gaza and power was being off on daily basis from 12 to 16 hours.

The organization appreciated the Qatari initiative expressed by the Qatari Minister of For-eign Affairs Khalid al-Atiyah during his meeting with the American Secretary of State John Kerry that called for ending the siege on Gaza and reopening all its connecting crossings.

The organization, in conclu-sion, called on international and regional bodies to pressure Israel to end its siege on the Gaza Strip.

Source: PIC

8 |



PA forces arrest Hamas cell planning drone attack on Israel

26/10/2013The PA security services in West Bank have arrested re-cently a cell affiliated with Qassam Brigades, Hamas mil-itary wing, accused of build-ing a small pilotless aircraft equipped with explosives, Walla Hebrew website said.

The Hebrew website quoted a Palestinian security official as saying that PA security forces had arrested members of a Qa-ssam cell in al-Khalil Univer-sity involved in the plan. The cell planned to launch a drone attack on Israel, according to the Israeli sources.

The sources pointed out that Hamas cell planned sev-eral times to build a drone equipped with explosives to detonate it over Israeli areas.

Hamas movement, for its part, issued a statement denounc-ing «this new serious proof of security cooperation between the occupation and the PA ser-vices.»

The spokesman for the move-ment, Sami Abu Zahri, criti-cized the Palestinian Authority

for «hindering all the efforts of the resistance and protecting the security of the occupation.»

In a related context, the military wing of Hamas claimed respon-sibility for the tunnel uncovered by Israel last week. The so-called «Khan Younis Tunnel» stretched 2.5km under the border between the beleaguered territory and Israel.

Speaking to Radio Al-Aqsa, a spokesman for the Izzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said that the tunnel had been dug as part of the efforts to force the Israelis to release some of the thousands of Palestinian pris-oners they are holding in their jails.

Source: Agencies

Hamas claims responsibility for “Khan Younis Tunnel”

The recent incidents have uncovered the creativity of Palestinian resistance movements in creating new means to confront the Israeli occupation, including at-tacks from under the ground using tunnels and attacks from sky using Palestinian-made drones.

| 9



No one concedes his rights like Abbas, claims Peres

24/10/2013Israeli President Shimon Peres said on Thurs-day that he has never known any Palestinian ready and willing to concede his rights as his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Ab-bas. Speaking at a conference for diplomats hosted by the Jerusalem Post, Peres said: «I have known him for 30 years and I do not know any other Palestinian who will say that although he was born in Safad he will never return there.»This was a clear reference to Abbas›s oft-repeated remark that he has conceded his right to return to the town where he was born which is now in “Israel”.Asked about the accusation by Avigdor Li-eberman that Abbas is not a real partner in the peace process, Peres disagreed with the former foreign minister. «The aim of the peace talks is to turn him [Abbas] into a part-ner,» he argued.Lieberman has said several times that Abbas is an obstacle to the peace talks and that it is not possible for a peace agreement to be reached as long as Abbas is the head of the Palestinian Authority.

Source: MEMO

Resistance fighter Mohammed Asy was killed at the hands of Israeli occupation forces (IOF) near Bilin, west of Ramallah, on Tuesday morn-ing.Eyewitnesses told the PIC that IOF soldiers in 60 army vehicles combed the areas of Bilin, Kufr Nima, and Beit Laqiya and arrested four citizens. They said that the soldiers chased Asy and killed him after an exchange of fire.For its part, the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said that Asy was one of its affiliates and was responsible for the bus bomb-ing in Tel Al-Rabi’ (Tel Aviv) last November in which 30 Israelis were wounded.Yediot Ahronot newspaper said that the resis-tance fighter hid in a cave near the village of Bilin and fired at IOF soldiers and was killed in the ensuing exchange of fire.On the other hand, a Palestinian old man from Funduq village, east of Qalqilia, died on Tues-day of wounds sustained a week ago after a set-tler ran over him.Darwish Nazzal hospital in Qalqilia said that 76-year-old Abdul Hafeeth Abu Tayim suc-cumbed to his wounds suffered on the second day of Eidul Adha.

Source: Agencies

Resistance fighter killed in exchange of fire with IOF soldiers

Palestinian old man diesafter settler ran over him

10 |



Alaa Hammad continues his hunger strike since 177 days

25/10/2013Jordanian prisoner in Israeli Jails Alaa Hammad, 35, sentenced to 12 years, continued his hunger strike launched since 176 days despite his serious health deterioration.

Hammad is being held in Barzillai Hospital where he suffers serious and critical health conditions, human rights sources said. Hammad suffers from chest pains and muscle atrophy in addition to constant headache and pains all over his body.

The Jordanian hunger striker is adamant on continuing despite his exhaustion and worsening condition where he has lost more than 30 kg of his weight since declaring the strike.

The prison administration tightened recently its punitive measures against him in an attempt to break his strike. He is being searched on a daily basis, in addition to being tied to bed and prevented from performing his prayers.

In a letter to the Palestinian people and institutions, Hammad has blamed everyone for not supporting his hunger strike which led to more Israeli restrictions and harassments against him. Although the Jordanian prisoners have stopped their hunger strike two months ago after reaching an agreement, the IPS did not al-low family visits to them, he said. Source: PIC

| 11



Israel Insider

21/11/2013Israel›s security body is to present its direct evaluation of the cuts to the military budget in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, estimating that the cuts would lead to around 10,000 military industry layoffs before the end of the year.

According to the Israeli newspaper Maariv, which published the story on Sunday, the layoffs would start before the end of the year should the government fail to rescind its decision to cut the budget.

The workers most vulnerable are those employed with Israeli military factories, micro military projects and with the different companies offering military services to the Israeli occupation forces.

Maariv reported that the security body is refusing to disclose more data about the budget cuts until the meeting with Netanyahu.

Analysts also expect that cuts to the military budget would harm the official Israeli army, reserve forces and military exercises.

Source: MEMO

10,000 Israelis could lose jobsdue to budget cuts

12 |



By: Dr. Daud Abdullah*

As happened in 2000, the Palestine-Israel negotiations are about to end with another eruption of civil unrest because of Jerusalem. The main differ-ence on this occasion is that the parties have not even begun to discuss the Holy City because Israel, with typical contempt and arrogance, has declared unilaterally that Jerusalem is off the agenda. It has, more-over, stepped up its campaign to divide and seize control of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third most sacred in Islam. Even the oft-pliant President Mahmud Abbas now acknowledges that this trajectory is leading to a re-ligious confrontation. Though fundamentally correct, Mr Abbas›s remark will ring hol-low as long as he continues to negotiate on other issues.The notion that the current US-led negotiations will lead to an independent Palestinian state is delusional. Israel›s coalition government has made it abun-dantly clear that it does not in-tend to have a Palestinian state in the West Bank. Likud-led, it is, after all, the true inheritor of the revisionist Zionist policy articulated by the then Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978 when he insisted that Is-

the mosque at any time of their choosing accompanied by a heavy security presence.

Whether the Israeli desecration of non-Jewish religious sites in Jerusalem had anything to do with Pope Francis›s decision this week not to meet Benya-min Netanyahu is not known. Whether he was responding to the calls from fellow Christians in Palestine is not clear either. However, what is known for certain is that Palestinian Chris-tians and Palestinian Muslims are all vehemently opposed to the current Israeli provocations in Al-Aqsa Mosque.

This week, the Christian-Is-lamic Council for the Support of Al-Quds and the Sanctities issued a statement warning of the Israeli plan to divide the mosque, which would al-low time and space for Jews to worship to the exclusion of the Muslims who own

Articles & Analyses

Israel enters dangerous uncharted territory in Jerusalem

rael would only concede «auton-omy for the people but not for the land».

On the immediate issue of Jerusa-lem and Al-Aqsa Mosque, Israel is now seeking to confine it to limit-ed rights to worship for Muslims, given on its terms and according to its will. This was represented in a bill proposed by the Deputy Knesset Speaker, Moshe Feiglin (Likud), to regulate the times and space usage of the Noble Sanctu-ary. In recent months, extremist settlers, accompanied by Israeli soldiers, have carried out almost daily incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque, either to conduct Jewish religious rituals or raise the Israeli flag and taunt the Palestinians.

This is new and dangerous un-charted territory aimed osten-sibly at divesting Muslims of ownership of the mosque. More directly it would render the role of the Palestinian Department of Religious Endowments utterly redundant and replace it with a special commissioner appointed by the occupation authorities. In effect, the plan is to place Al-Aq-sa Mosque under the control and supervision of the Israeli Min-istry of Religious Affairs. That, Feiglin hopes, will normalise the current practice of Jews entering

| 13



the site as a religious endow-ment. Likewise, a statement by Jerusalem›s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Mohammad Hussein, condemned recent Israeli plans to build a temple on top of Al-Musalla Al-Marwani, a prayer site located within the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex. This musalla constitutes one-fifth of the total area of the sanctuary and many see this as a first step towards full control by the Israelis.

The Israeli government›s policy as pursued by Likud activists and illegal set-tlers is evidently based on the presumption that the region›s governments and people are too preoccupied with their own problems to bother themselves with what happens in Jerusa-lem. Jordan is burdened with the fall-out from the Syrian conflict and its own political paralysis; Egypt is unstable and dysfunc-tional; and Saudi Arabia, the region›s power broker, is mired in a bitter rivalry with Iran and a worsening dispute with the Ameri-cans over Syria. The Is-raelis will view this as a historic moment that they must seize as such a «per-fect storm» may not come along again for a long time.

Israeli designs in Jerusalem were given a huge boost by the overthrow of Egypt›s President Morsi in July. For the first time, the leader of the Islamic Move-ment in Palestine, Shaikh Raed Salah, has told Al-Jazeera this week that he was in regular con-tact with the Morsi administra-

tion to develop a popular inter-national alliance to protect and preserve Jerusalem›s Islamic identity. Several of his attempts to visit Egypt for this purpose were scuppered by the «deep state» now running Egypt; the last time was just three days be-fore Morsi was overthrown.

It goes almost without say-ing that Al-Aqsa Mosque is threatened now more than at any other time since the occu-

pation of Jerusalem began in 1967, yet no one can predict the consequences of Israel›s attempt to seize full control of this Islamic sanctuary. While no indi-vidual leader or country is capable of reversing the imminent danger, every-one shares a collective re-sponsibility. The marches organised across Egypt on the last Friday of Octo-ber under the slogan «The steadfastness of Suez is our way to Jerusalem» may be the beginning of the sort of popular response that is needed and has not been anticipated by the Israeli occupation.

* Daud A. Abdullah is the cur-rent Deputy Secretary General of the Muslim Co uncil of Brit-ain. He has been senior re-searcher at the London-based Palestinian Return Centre and editor of the Return Review, which has recently been re-placed with the Journal of Pal-estinian Refugees Studies.

””

Al-Aqsa Mosque is threatened now more than at any other time since the occupation of Jerusalem began in 1967, yet no one can predict the consequenc-es of Israel›s attempt to seize full control of this Islamic sanctuary.

14 |


Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia14 |


PalestinianPalestinianP CulturalCulturalC Organization MalaysiaMalaysiaM

issue no 67

Documents

alaqsa foundation

israel hamas

hamas movement

international organization

israeli knessets proposal

israeli schemes

israeli government

raeli bill