PALESTINIAN resistance movement Hamas on has called on Palestinian people at home and abroad to continue their struggle, by all possible means, in defence of the Palestinian national constants, land, and Islamic and Christian sanctities.
Commemorating the 27th anniversary of the tunnel uprising in a statement on Monday, Hamas called on the Arab and Islamic nations, leaders, and peoples to assume their responsibilities in protecting and defending the Al-Aqsa Mosque, supporting the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their legitimate struggle, and to stand firmly against the Israeli attempts and plots targeting Jerusalem and the holy site.
‘The uprising anniversary coincides with the escalating barbaric aggression practiced by the fascist occupation government against our sanctities in Occupied Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and all our people in the West Bank,’ the Movement said.
Hamas further vowed that ‘martyrs’ blood will remain the fuel for the Palestinian freedom struggle against the Israeli occupation.
‘All the Israeli occupation’s crimes will not give it the alleged legitimacy over an inch of our land and our sanctities,’ it continued.
Monday marked the 27th anniversary of the outbreak of the tunnel uprising against the Israeli government’s decision to open a tunnel under the Al-Aqsa Mosque’s western wall.
Sixty-three Palestinians were killed and more than 1,600 others injured during the events.
Meanwhile on Monday, the Palestinian Commission for Prisoners and Ex-Detainees Affairs said that Israel is holding 18 Jordanians in its prisons for their role in the resistance against the Israeli occupation.
It said in a report that among the Jordanian prisoners, there are nine serving one or more life sentences, five serving sentences ranging from 20-36 years, three serving sentences ranging between 15-19 years, and one prisoner serving a sentence of five years.
Seven of these Jordanian prisoners have been incarcerated for more than 20 years, and five others have been in prison for more than 15 years.
There are over 4,500 Palestinian freedom fighters currently incarcerated in Israel for their resistance to the occupation.
On Sunday evening, Israeli occupation forces detained two young Palestinian men from Beit Hanina, in occupied Jerusalem.
Local sources reported that the occupation forces stormed a house owned by the Gharabli family in Beit Hanina, and detained Mahmoud Awad and Majd Gharabli.
Also on Sunday, in a separate incident, a disabled youth and a girl were injured when they were run over by an Israeli settler while they were in a store in the Tel Rumeida neighbourhood, in the centre of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
The head of the Ibrahim Al-Khalil Association, which is located in Tel Rumeida, Yasser Abu Markhiya, told Palestinian news agency WAFA that a settler passed a military checkpoint and rammed into a store belonging to Hamdi Yahya Idais, 21, a disabled youth who uses an electric chair, leaving him with head injuries.
Elsewhere on Sunday evening, the Israeli occupation forces blocked a number of roads in occupied Jerusalem for the occasion of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
Local sources reported that the occupation police completely closed the entrances to a number of neighbourhoods with cement cubes to prevent the movement of vehicles, and prevented citizens from moving around until Monday evening.
- The General Secretariat of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Sunday condemned ‘in the strongest terms the provocative act of desecration of a copy of the holy Koran,’ which was carried out on Saturday in front of the Embassies of some OIC Member States in The Hague, the Netherlands.
The General Secretariat said in a statement that it reaffirms the position of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation as stated by the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in the resolution it adopted at its 18th Extraordinary Session, held on 31 July, and devoted to the repeated incidents of desecration of copies of the Holy Koran.
‘The Council condemned all attempts to denigrate the sanctity of al-Mus’haf ash-Sharif (Holy Koran) as well as other sacred books, values and symbols of Islam and other religions under the garb of “freedom of expression”, which is contrary to the spirit of Articles (19) and (20) of the ICCPR (The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights),’ it said.
The OIC General Secretariat called on the Dutch authorities ‘to take necessary measures against such provocative acts, which constitute acts of religious hatred, in violation of international law, and to prevent their recurrence.’
- The number of Palestinians who were killed in the hurricane that struck eastern Libya has risen to 64, according to an official statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates.
The political advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Ambassador Ahmed Al-Deek, said in a statement issued on Sunday that, under the guidance of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh, and the instructions of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Riyad Al-Maliki, the Ministry is following the conditions of the Palestinian community in areas affected by the hurricane in Libya, to determine the extent of the suffering and the great damage that befell it.
- Palestinian supporters have called for a boycott of the movie, Golda, starring Helen Mirren, which is about to premier in the UK, for glorifying former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir accusing the filmmakers of ‘whitewashing a genocidal maniac’.
While the movie celebrates Meir’s leadership as Israel’s prime minister during the 1973 war launched by Egypt and Syria on October 6th to regain their lands occupied by Israel in the June 1967 war, organisers of the boycott accuse Meir of killing and displacing thousands of Palestinians during her tenure and denying the existence of the Palestinian people, the indigenous people of Palestine and what is now called Israel.
‘Hundreds of Palestinians were killed and many thousands were removed to refugee camps during her tenure, and yet Meir refused to even acknowledge the existence of Palestinian people… “There is no such thing as the Palestinian people. It is not as though we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist”,’ said the organisers, quoting Meir.
Ironically, Meir herself held a Palestinian passport and even referred to herself as Palestinian for many years.
Former Panorama current affairs correspondent Alan Hart once interviewed Meir and asked: ‘You are saying that, if ever Israel was in danger of being defeated on the battlefield, it would be prepared to take the region and even the whole world down with it?’ She replied: ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.’
Born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1898, Meir moved to the United States as a child and then to Palestine in 1921, working in a new kibbutz; she held a Palestinian passport.
She then lived in a grand Palestinian house looted in 1948 from Hanna Bisharat, who had built the house 20 years earlier for his large family.
Helen Mirren visited Israel in the 1967 war and had herself volunteered on a kibbutz. She shares Meir’s view.
Pete Gregson of One Democratic Palestine said: ‘Mirren has led the cast in a racist movie, intended to propagandise the Israeli project and its war criminal founders, whitewashing their crimes against humanity.
‘The film glamourises ethnic cleansing; it attempts to romanticise the occupation and to portray the perpetrators as the victims.
‘People like Meir should be remembered as war criminals and illegal settlers, rather than being portrayed as heroes in silly Hollywood movies.’
Jonathan Ofir, an Israeli musician based in Denmark, wrote of Meir: ‘In the end, her attitude towards Palestinians was basically a macho, chauvinist, denialist attitude which is intrinsically inherent in Zionism.’
Howie Movshovitz said in the KUNC film review: ‘When Golda Meir was prime minister, Israel had more friends in the world than it does now. It was still viewed as a tiny, somewhat romantic and courageous little country.
‘But now, there’s more controversy and opposition around the world over the issue of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. So why a film about this Israeli heroine with no mention of the Palestinian question? Movies about the past are always also about their own present.’
Taghrid Al-Mawed runs the Palestine Refugee Project; she had this to say: ‘Golda Meir had no problem killing Palestinians, saying, “How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to?”. Helen Mirren is more than happy to play this evil woman in her latest film.
‘Well, Helen, we Palestinians do exist, and we will never forget your words and acts of support for the Zionists and your eagerness to play Meir, who has done us so much harm. She (and you) may have wanted to wipe us out, but she failed; we are still here, and we still have a very loud voice that more and more people are starting to hear and pick up.
‘You have made a mistake Mirren; history will judge you.’
The campaign to boycott the movie is asking supporters to picket cinemas where it is going to be shown.