Visiting Al-Aqsa ‘every Muslim’s right’

January 6, 2015

Jerusalem, Jan 6: The head of the world’s largest Islamic organization on Monday paid a rare visit to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, urging Muslims to follow suit and come to the city in a bid to strengthen Palestinian claims to the holy site.

The visit by Iyad Madani, secretary-general of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, came at a sensitive time following months of tensions and violence surrounding the holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City. The hilltop compound is revered by Muslims.

Al-Aqsa is Islam’s third-holiest site after Makkah and Madinah.

“Coming to the mosque is a right for me as well as every Muslim,” Madani said. “It is our right to come here and to pray here. No occupation authority should take this right from us.”

Israel usurped East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967, in a move that has not been internationally recognized. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

The hilltop compound housing Al-Aqsa lies at the heart of the dispute over Jerusalem.

While Madani’s predecessor, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a Turk, also visited Jerusalem, visits by Saudi dignitaries are rare and need to be coordinated with Israel.

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Israel continues massacre in Lebanon; targets capital Beirut in fresh aggression

News Network

November 7,2024

The Israeli regime has killed at least 40 people during new airstrikes against eastern Lebanese areas, besides targeting the country’s capital Beirut with fresh acts of aggression.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the fatalities on Wednesday, saying 53 other people had also been wounded during the aerial attacks that targeted the country’s Bekaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek.

In early Thursday, the regime was also reported to have attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, including a site adjacent to Rafiq Hariri International Airport.

The attacks came after the regime issued short-notice evacuation orders apparently directed at the residents of the areas, claiming that the areas contained facilities belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

Tel Aviv has been using similar claims on countless occasions since last October, when it markedly intensified its deadly acts of aggression against Lebanon, in order to try to justify the escalation. Hezbollah has, however, invariably refuted the claims.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations warned in its most recent flash report on the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli atrocities targeting Lebanon that the aggression had “reached a critical point.”

The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, which was “58 percent more than the 1,900 fatalities” that were caused by the regime’s 2006 war against Lebanon, the report said.

“Additionally, an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, both within Lebanon and into neighboring countries, 33 percent more than the number of people displaced in 2006,” it added.

Women comprised the majority of those who had been rendered homeless within Lebanon as a result of the Israeli attacks, the report noted.

It also regretted that the Israeli attacks had featured 78 assaults on healthcare facilities across the country that had claimed the lives of 130 health workers and injured 111 others.

In response to the aggression, Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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