70,000 worshipers performed the fourth Friday prayers of the blessed month of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, despite the occupation army’s closure of Jerusalem, due to the protests that erupted against the occupation’s efforts to evacuate Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
After the prayers, thousands of Palestinians organized a pause and marches in the mosque's squares, and the demonstrators chanted slogans praising the Al-Qassam Brigades (the armed wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas) and its leader, Muhammad Al-Deif.
The Israeli occupation authorities had deployed thousands of police and what are known as border guards in Jerusalem, the vicinity of the Old City, and the gates of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in preparation for the last Friday in the month of Ramadan.
The occupation police closed the streets surrounding the Old City and prevented cars from entering, while the flow of Palestinians began to Al-Aqsa Mosque from various parts of Jerusalem and from within the Green Line.
The last Friday in Ramadan comes amid an atmosphere of intense tension in the city against the background of the occupation's efforts to expel families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, where last night witnessed violent confrontations between settlers and the occupation forces on one side, and between the neighborhood's residents and in solidarity with them on the other side.
Tension Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood
Meanwhile, the United Nations demanded that Israel immediately cease all expulsions from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem.
And the United Nations considered - in a statement - that the expulsion decision, if taken, would be considered an Israeli violation of international law, and confirmed that East Jerusalem is still part of the occupied Palestinian territories.
And according to UN Security Council resolutions, all legislative and administrative measures taken by Israel are null and void, according to the United Nations statement.
Earlier this year, the Israeli Central Court in Occupied Jerusalem ruled to evacuate 4 homes inhabited by Palestinians who had contracts given by the Jordanian authorities that ran East Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967, proving their ownership of real estate in the neighborhood.
The court's decision angered the Palestinians, who challenged it, and their protests often led to clashes with the Israeli police, who beat the protesters.
Last night, the neighborhood witnessed new confrontations between Palestinians and the Israeli police forces, after settlers attacked Palestinians who were protesting against the decisions of the Israeli courts.
Representative of the far-right "Religious Zionism" party, Itamar bin Ghafir, went to Sheikh Jarrah a few hours after the Supreme Court set a date Monday for a new hearing in the case of families threatened with eviction, to support a family of settlers, by repeating the phrase "This house is ours" in Hebrew .
Today, Friday, dozens of Palestinians were injured, most of them suffocated due to the tear gas launched by the occupation army to disperse various marches in the West Bank in opposition to settlement expansion, and in solidarity with the people of Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem.
The Jordanian position
In the context, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that deporting the people of Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem from their homes is a crime that the world must prevent from occurring.
Safadi added - in a series of tweets on his Twitter account today - that Palestinians threatened with deportation are the legitimate owners of their homes, as confirmed by documents delivered by Jordan to the Palestinian side.
Al-Safadi considered that the continuation of Israel's illegal practices and its provocative steps in occupied Jerusalem, and the violation of the rights of the Palestinians, including the right of the people of Sheikh Jarrah to their homes.
Dangerous playing with fire.
Safadi welcomed the statement of Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Britain calling for stopping the illegal settlement policy in the occupied West Bank, stressing the need to launch immediate international action to prevent the deportation of Palestinians from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
On the popular level, Jordanians demonstrated today in the center of the capital, Amman, to denounce the repeated Israeli violations in occupied Jerusalem and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and the normalization of Arab countries with Israel.
As for the Iranian guide, Ali Khamenei, he said that Israel is the camp of terrorism, and that it is practicing it against the Palestinian and Muslim peoples.
Khamenei added - in a statement on the occasion of Jerusalem Day - that the Palestinian issue is common among Islamic countries, and that facing the occupation is a duty for these countries, as he put it.