From the morning, a large whitish blimp hung in the blue sky just outside and above the Old City of Jerusalem.
It was not an advertising gimic for a major sporting event, as it might have been in some other countries.
It was a sophisticated un-manned surveillance craft, loaded with cameras, monitoring events in a wide perimeter around all approaches to the Al-Aqsa Mosque — the third holiest site for Muslims — on the first Friday in the holy month of Ramadan, when all those believers who can will fast from dawn to dusk.
A similar blimp hangs just over Erez crossing point into Gaza — suspended in the air from a thick rope rising straight up from the ground. You have to hang out of the car window to crane your neck to see what the rope is doing exactly, there — and then, directly above, up in the sky, you see the blimp.
Around noontime, the somewhat unusual (for Jerusalem) sound of helicopter overflights, buzzing for over two hours, circling the Old City, even higher than the surveillance blimp.
My friend Jihad, who says he hasn’t been to Al-Aqsa for Friday prayers in about 20 years, and who isn’t particularly observant, was one of those waiting to board busses to get nearer to the entrance to the Old City.
(Maybe Jihad has just passed the magic age of 45 — younger men than that are not allowed to get too near to the Mosque, which was the site of the deadly clashes that followed a predictably provocative visit by Israel’s Ariel Sharon in September 2000. These violent clashes marked the beginning of the Second Intifada.)
Jihad is determinedly secular, not at all a follower of Hamas, though some of the faithful undoubtedly are.
UPDATE: Kol Israel Radio reported Friday night, rather proudly it seemed, that some 90,000 faithful assembled for Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa, while some 3,000 Israeli security forces were present; the prayer went off peacefully, the Kol Israel report confirmed.
The Palestinian independent news agency Ramattan, however, noted that many thousands of Palestinians were turned back at checkpoints, and were not able to make it to the Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa.
Ramattan reported that its correspondent “said that thousands of Palestinians who are under the age of fifty gathered on the Israeli checkpoints today, after the Israeli news about facilitations to reach al-Aqsa mosque in the first Friday of Ramadan. [According to] Israeli sources, only the Palestinians who are over the age of fifty, and live in Jerusalem City, or in Israel, will be allowed to pray in al-Aqsa mosque”.
Read the Ramattan News Agency report here.
The other Palestinian independent news agency, Maan, reported that “Israel has announced that it will allow Palestinian citizens over the age of 50 to enter Jerusalem without permits during the month of Ramadan. Those under the age of 50 will have to apply for permission … Despite the Israeli announcement to facilitate the entry to Jerusalem for people over the age of 50 from the West Bank, there has been an increase in the number of Israeli soldiers and police at the major checkpoints into the city of Jerusalem, as well as the main streets of the city. Palestinian citizens are also subject to random searches within the vicinity of the Old City, and as they go into the mosque. Israeli soldiers at the Qalandia crossing, north of Jerusalem, did not allow Palestinians to pass through to attend Friday prayers in Jerusalem, threatening them with force. The official for civil affairs in the Palestinian Authority, Hussein Sheikh, announced the Israelis will give permission to some worshippers to pray in the Al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan. They will also remove some of the checkpoints to facilitate Palestinian freedom of movement between cities in the Palestinian territories, he added.”
Read the Maan News Agency report here.
Later, Maan News Agency reported that former Palestinian presidential candidate, and former Minister of Information in the short-lived recent National Unity government, Dr, Mustafa Barghouthi, tried to get to Al-Aqsa for the Friday prayers, but was prevented by Israeli security forces. “Barghouthi said in a statement that occupation forces turned him back from the entrance to Jerusalem despite him trying to cross the checkpoint four times. He added that the incident reveals Israeli claims to be false that they would allow anyone over the age of 50 to enter Jerusalem and that their passage from areas in the West Bank to Jerusalem would be made easier. Barghouthi pointed out that Israeli claims of facilitating Palestinian freedom of movement during Ramadan have actually manifested as an increase in the number of Israeli police at checkpoints, the main entrance to Jerusalem and the surrounding areas and at the main gates to the Old City, as well as those of the Al-Aqsa mosque… ”
This Maan News Agency story is published here.
Kol Israel said that its correspondent reported “there were no restrictions on Israeli Arabs bearing blue identity cards” — this just illustrates both the bureaucracy of the occuation regime, on the one hand, and the utter arbitrariness and confusion of it, on the other hand, because you never know until you get to any given checkpoint what will happen. In addition to whatever “rules” or “orders” may be in effect, there is also the human element — whether the particular soldier or guard you will encounter will be relaxed or a bit of a sadist, or whether there may be a supervisor visiting somewhere, who should be impressed be the ferocity of the strictness imposed.
Ghaleb called later to say that he was very happy to have attended the Friday prayer at Al-Aqsa — he is maybe in his mid-thirties. He said that an Israeli announcement had been made well before Ramadan that there would be no restrictions on Jerusalem Palestinians (nor on Israeli Arabs) going to pray at Al-Aqsa — though, he said, there were problems for anyone who wanted to come in from the West Bank. In the past, he said, there used to be special shuttle busses put on for going to Al-Aqsa during Ramadan — direct from Ramallah or Bethlehem to the Old City, without any stops — but that practice has been discontinued.
Ghaleb said that at the Friday prayer, Al-Aqsa had been “empty”.
“You know”, he added, “there are some 240,000 Palestinians in Jerusalem alone …”
He was so pleased that he and a friend were headed off to the Old City to perform the ‘Isha’ late night prayers on Saturday night. Actually, Ghaleb and his friend may well run into Madonna, her husband Guy Ritchie, Demi Moore, and another Hollywood star, who were in Israel for a Kabbala event, and who were headed off to the Tomb of the Sages in the Galilee region for a night ceremony, then to Jerusalem,probably by dawn. The last time Madonna was here, she visited the Western or “Wailing” Wall with a phalanx of muscled security guards, then had her picture taken with Ehud Olmert (now Israel’s Prime Minister) and Gideon Ezra (a denizen of the Mossad service who is currently Israel’s Minister of the Environment).
Taysir, another friend, said that he, too, had attended the Friday prayer at Al-Aqsa. “It was good”, he said, his tone of voice indicating full approval (no element of qualification or reserve). I asked about the sermon, and he said it had focussed on the problems in Gaza, with some mention of troubles facing Palestinians elsewhere, including in the West Bank.However, almost all Palestinians are extremely annoyed at Fatah policies aimed at trouncing Hamas after its electoral gains in the last couple of years, and its military coup in Gaza in mid-June. A majority of Palestinians polled informally by this correspondent believe that the present Fatah-affiliated Palestinian leadership is hopelessly failing, yet again, to represent their views or their interests.
Many of those Palestinians headed for Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa most fervently wish to assert the Palestinian claim to an important part of Jerusalem — where Palestinians have steadily been losing ground in recent years in an intense struggle being waged to assert sovereignty and title. Israel, however, has a much stronger hand, as its blithely assertive settlement policies, and its inexorable construction of the Wall, make continuous gains.
The Associated Press reported that “Hundreds of Palestinians thronged two major West Bank checkpoints, trying to reach a key Islamic shrine in Jerusalem on the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, despite tight Israeli restrictions. Israeli troops turned back many of the West Bank faithful. Only men above the age of 45 and women above the age of 35, who had also obtained special permits, were allowed to enter Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine of Islam, said police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby. Later Friday, several tens of thousands of Palestinians participated in the Al Aqsa service, and the crowd dispersed peacefully. This year, the start of Ramadan, a month of fasting and religious observance, coincided with the Jewish New Year. As customary, Israel imposed a blanket closure on the West Bank during the Jewish holiday, barring virtually all Palestinians from entering Israel. Hundreds of Israeli police were deployed in streets and alleys in and around Jerusalem’s walled Old City where the Al Aqsa Mosque compound is located. Troops also took up positions at two major West Bank checkpoints, one to the south of Jerusalem and one to the north. The checkpoints are built into Israel’s West Bank separation barrier, which rings most of Jerusalem to control Palestinian movement into Israel. At the southern checkpoint, near the biblical town of Bethlehem, hundreds of Palestinians, many of them elderly, pushed up against police lines set up near the separation barrier, in this area a towering wall. At one point, the crowd pushed through the police line. One woman crawled on her hands and knees, another fell to the ground as people behind her surged forward. Israeli troops shouted at people to get back. At the northern Qalandia crossing, near the city of Ramallah, hundreds of people waited to pass. Hamdi Abu Fadi, 44, was turned back because he didn’t meet the age requirement. Abu Fadi said he’d try to sneak into Jerusalem in another area, in hopes of reaching Al Aqsa. Prayers performed at the shrine are considered more powerful than worship in another mosque. Palestinians have long complained that Israel is violating their right to freedom of worship by restricting access to a major shrine. “It’s a crime against us all year long, whether during Ramadan or any other month,” said Abu Fadi. Israel says it imposes the restrictions to prevent possible attacks by Palestinian militants…
Read the AP story here.
Meanwhile, as Agence France Presse is reporting, “[Fatah’s] Palestinian security officers have stepped up surveillance of places of worship across the [West Bank] territory and preachers caught spouting Hamas propaganda will be sacked, said one security official speaking on condition of anonymity. The Fatah-dominated security services — whose colleagues in the Gaza Strip were decisively defeated by Hamas three months ago — accuse the Islamist movement of recruiting supporters and stockpiling weapons in mosques. Hamas denies the charges and says that Fatah will widen the gulf between the two main Palestinian political parties if it wages a ‘political’ clampdown on men of the cloth in the more than 1,500 West Bank mosques. Jamal Bawatneh, religious affairs minister in the Abbas-appointed government based in the West Bank, has warned that any imam or preacher ‘promoting political, personal or partisan ideas will be sacked or replaced’. Placing advertisements in newspapers, the Palestinian civil service is looking to recruit ‘qualified staff’ to fill vacant preaching jobs. Bawatneh says his government has already budgeted for 800 such jobs [emphasis added, to illustrate the not-so-subtle coercion being exercised, where so many people are desperate for any kind of real work] … According to the central bureau of statistics, there are 2,228 mosques in the Palestinian territories, 1,547 of them in the West Bank. Thanks to the imams and preachers, Hamas ‘controls’ most mosques in the West Bank, the security official believes. Even in Abbas’s base of Ramallah, Hamas controls ‘more than 70 percent’ of the mosques, he said … The Palestinian intelligence services attribute Hamas’s landslide victory in January 2006 parliamentary elections in large part to its control of mosques [emphasis added, to illustrate the not-so-subtle propaganda being used in this intense and crucial Fatah-Hamas conflict] … “
Read the APF story here.
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