Mount of Olives, or Mount Tur, east of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, overlooking its towering slopes directly on the Temple Mount, and includes many monuments and Islamic and Christian monuments, most notably the Gethsemane Church.

Because of its importance, Israel chose vast areas above its foothills and extended to the adjacent Kidron Valley, and built a cemetery with mock tombs adjacent to the Harzitim cemetery, which houses 70,000 Jewish and political personal tombs, on an area of ​​400 acres.

In the coming weeks, Israel intends to open the modern cemetery, which was built by the Israeli Kedishah Foundation for burial services over the past four years. It contains 25,000 polystyrene tombs spread over four floors inside the walls. Electric lifts.

Accelerated expansion

Phantom tombs extend within sight of the foothills of the Mount of Olives, east and west, and reach the valley of Kidron adjacent to the wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, covering areas of Saludha land south of the Holy Mosque, and land in the town of Ras al-Amud. The head of the Islamic Cemetery Committee in Jerusalem, Mustafa Abu Zahra, that the tomb of the Mount of Olives contains a large number of phantom tombs, which is seen by a six-pointed star on the ground, without including the remains underneath, indicating that the ancient tombstones brought from abroad, and placed on Graves of the cemetery to circulate the archaeological character on them.

Abu Zuhra tells Emirates Today that Israel is working hard to change the features of occupied Jerusalem through attacks on Islamic Waqf lands in the holy city and the construction of thousands of Jewish cemeteries and tombs east of Al Aqsa Mosque, specifically in the area between the Kidron Valley. Silwan and Mount of Olives, which will witness the opening of the modern cemetery ».

The cemetery is widening

He adds: «The cemetery expands daily rapidly, through the continuous work of the crews and mechanisms, which dug the graves, and the top of the six-letter evidence written in Hebrew, while the Israeli institution placed gravel on the graves to suggest that they are full, but many of them are illusory and empty».

According to Abu Zahra, the area that includes the graves of the Jews built on the slopes of the Mount of Olives to Wadi Qadron, Israel has not enough of the graves and burials, but has established during the past four years fake tombs, claiming to be ancient Jewish graves found during excavations in the area Wide around the Old City, both south and east of the town in Jerusalem.

It shows that Israel confiscated 38 dunums of Saludha land south of Al-Aqsa Mosque and established fake tombs, claiming that it is a Jewish cemetery, pointing out that these lands were Islamic Waqf 130 years ago.

According to the head of the Islamic Cemeteries Committee in Jerusalem: «The records of the Sharia Court in Jerusalem prove the existence of leases dating back to the early era of the Ottoman Empire, specifically in 1559, where they rented and monopolized, according to the terms of the lease, a small part of the land stop the school validity, and part of the church "Get the Jewish subjects to be able to bury their dead in them, in exchange for agreed amounts of money paid to the endowment."

Gravity and siege

Israel has created the tombs for many years as a policy of its own, paralleling the plans of settlement, Judaization and racial expansion, and no less dangerous, as these tombs need more areas on which they are built, and the imposition of control over larger areas, according to researcher in Jerusalem affairs Professor Architecture at Birzeit University, Jamal Amr.

Amr warns of the danger of Israel creating hundreds of fake tombs on the southeastern and western façade of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The professor of architecture: «Israel is still continuing the siege of Al-Aqsa from the south-east and west, through the establishment of mock tombs in the area Slodha, near the Umayyad palaces in the south-east of the Marwani chapel in the blessed mosque».

He adds that «all these graves are empty dead, and the aim is to give the sanctity and status of the cemetery and control of the land adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque».

According to the researcher in Jerusalem affairs, the pseudo-tombs are located in what Israel calls the Holy Basin, which is adjacent to Al-Aqsa Mosque. .

Israel is working hard to change the landmarks of occupied Jerusalem, through attacks on the lands of Islamic endowments in the holy city, and the construction of thousands of cemeteries and fake tombs of Jews east of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, specifically in the area between the Kidron Valley in Silwan and Mount of Olives, which will witness the opening of the modern cemetery.

Israel confiscated 38 dunums of Saludha land, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and built fake tombs on the grounds that it was a Jewish cemetery.