It does not seem that the daily confrontations that the Al-Murabitoun wages in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque against the Israeli occupation forces, which fire tear gas and rubber bullets to drive the worshipers out of the Al-Qibli prayer hall, and try to keep the Al-Mourabitoun away from the mosque’s courtyards and besiege the worshipers and the retreating, do not seem to have undermined the resolve of these Al-Mourabites.
Despite everything, young people have not yet lost their hope of reaching the Al-Aqsa Mosque and praying and bonding there with hearts filled with longing, and determinations to which despair has not known a way.
We tell you the journey of a group of these young men in their blessed march to the courtyards of the mosque and their path decorated with barbed wire and confrontations with the occupation patrols, in the hope of catching up with the rest of the stationed in the blessed spot.
Thabit.. The infiltration journey through the "holes"
With a feeling full of nostalgia and longing, the Palestinian youth "Thabit Thabet" (25 years) sang a verse of the Jordanian Ayman Al-Atoum, saying: "Take me to Al-Aqsa Mosque and its courtyard...I died at its door during the sacred months", and he ran towards the Al-Aqsa Mosque grounds at the same time. , happy to arrive after a short-long trip from Ramallah in the West Bank.
Millions of those who watched a video clip broadcast on his Facebook page a few days before the start of the blessed month of Ramadan, Thabet, described his short journey to Al-Aqsa Mosque, despite his residing in the city of Ramallah, which is only 15 km from occupied Jerusalem. His access to the mosque was not easy, as he went through tremendous suffering, like hundreds of others who traveled to Al-Aqsa from the West Bank cities, after the Israeli occupation state prevented Palestinians from entering Jerusalem.
Perhaps a single shot shows this young man’s hand extended to his comrades hiding among the thorns of the Israeli occupation soldiers telling the details of the story, as these young people have been prevented since their birth from reaching Al-Aqsa due to their need for previous approval from the occupation authorities, which grant permits to specific categories only such as patients, merchants and foreigners It excludes those under the age of forty-five.
Moreover, the Israeli occupation procedures were and still are strict in allowing male citizens of the West Bank to enter Al-Aqsa Mosque, as their entry is restricted to obtaining other permits that allow them to cross the many checkpoints on the road to occupied Jerusalem, which are not usually granted.
To confront this situation, the residents of the West Bank devised, about two years ago, what is known as "openings", which are gaps that have gnawed through part of the apartheid concrete wall or the barbed wire separating the West Bank and the occupied interior, including Jerusalem.
These openings represented ways for West Bank citizens to infiltrate Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to pray, especially on Fridays and the month of Ramadan, and to the cities of the occupied interior themselves in order to work without the need for a transit permit.
Young people have so far created more than 270 breaches along the wall and the separation fence that Israel built on the Green Line separating the territories occupied in 1967 and 1948.
However, during the few days leading up to the current month of Ramadan, the occupation forces closed and tightened procedures on those openings in the wall, as the Israeli Ministerial Council decided on March 30 to close all the gaps in the wall, as part of a set of collective punishment decisions that were approved under the weight of operations Palestinian resistance fighters in recent weeks, especially the operation carried out by the martyr "Zia Hamarsheh" last March.
Israeli information indicates that the martyr set out in his vehicle from the town of "Yabad" in Jenin in the northern West Bank to the place of the operation in the city of "Bnei Brak" in the middle of the occupation state, through one of these openings.
Thabet, a Palestinian in the West Bank, sighed while talking to Meidan, saying, “Today we have gone back to the time before the openings.” This is an option that involves several risks, he said, as Thabet estimates the percentage of a person’s risk of breaking a foot or hand because of the fence. In addition to the risks after succeeding in bypassing the wall and moving towards Jerusalem, there are still fears that the identities of these people will be revealed and arrested by the patrols of the occupation soldiers who monitor the borders.
However, with the start of Ramadan, Thabet did not hesitate to resort to this option in order to reach the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He explained the details of his experience, saying: “Last week we tried to bypass the wall, and one of us reached the top and discovered that the area under the wall is furnished with barbed wire. You need to go skydiving or from a plane to get past that."
In the midst of the battle that the occupation is now waging in Jerusalem, in which dozens of young men from the West Bank were arrested and forcibly removed from Al-Aqsa Mosque, Thabet ended his conversation with “Maidan” and left us to continue with his comrades planning a new trip to Al-Aqsa in the last ten days of Ramadan. Now to the blessed days of i'tikaf, which are worth the only risk again in the face of Israeli oppression.
“God willing, we will succeed and we will talk to you again soon,” Thabet ended his speech.
Mujahid.. the epic prayer at Al-Aqsa
Like Thabet, the 22-year-old Mujahid Hamayel set out from his home in the village of Beita, in the Nablus governorate in the West Bank, bearing great fear, not from the occupation forces, but rather that his trip to Al-Aqsa Mosque would fail after he tried Twice before and it didn't work.
That was on the night of Thursday, April 14, when he and about thirty young men went to Ramallah and its suburbs to reach a hole or a cement corner of the apartheid wall that would allow them, if they crossed it, to reach Jerusalem.
Soon, "Mujahid" and his companions identified the suitable area for climbing, which was ten meters long.
The group succeeded in bypassing the wall, but soon the occupation soldiers found out about them and started chasing them.
In his interview with Maidan, Mujahid explains the details of the hit-and-run between the young men and the Israeli soldiers, saying: "We hid inside a mosque in Beit Hanina (a town located north of Jerusalem on the road leading to Ramallah), and we stayed there until breakfast, then we decided to go out two by two. Until we reached the Bab Al-Amoud bus stop, and as soon as we got there, all the fear and fatigue that had caused us were gone.”
After the young men finally succeeded in reaching the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Mujahid described his feelings at the time, saying: “It was the first time that I reached Al-Aqsa, even though I came once when I was ten years old. It was a wonderful moment for me, the beauty of the mosque with its golden dome lit. Embracing the sky captivates hearts and minds.
During this trip, on the road from Nablus to Ramallah, Mujahid received the news of the death of his relative, "Fawaz Hamayel", a father of three, who was shot in the chest by live bullets during the Israeli occupation forces' storming of Beita.
"The pain of leaving Fawaz was mixed with the joy of reaching Al-Aqsa, and praise be to God anyway," Mujahid commented.
Mujahid prayed Tarawih prayers and intended i’tikaaf on the night of the second Friday of Ramadan in Al-Aqsa, until the time for Fajr prayer came, which as soon as it ended, the occupation forces stormed the Al-Qibli Mosque and surrounded the worshipers in it. The windows, and they fired and gas bombs at us massively and randomly, so I was hit by two rubber bullets in my hand and stomach, while the sight of injuries around me was horrific, as I saw the blood oozing from many worshipers as a result of serious injuries to their chests, heads, and hands.”
The siege of the mosque ended after a while, but the confrontations continued outside it until the Israeli forces re-siege the Al-Qibli Mosque, a siege more severe than the previous one.
The occupation soldiers broke the ambulance door and entered in large numbers to brutally arrest the young worshipers.
"They brutally assaulted the youth, handcuffed and arrested them. Most of us were arrested, including three of my friends who came with me, and only two other young men escaped arrest, as we hid among the sheikhs."
When things calmed down a little, Mujahid took with the endowment employees and the sheikhs to clean the mosque and fix its conditions until it was time for the Friday prayer, then he prayed his prayers and returned to his village waiting for news of the release of his companions.
Abboud.. a bloody night of bond
While preparing for his trip to Al-Aqsa Mosque, a young man, "Abboud Fares" (26 years), was informed by his companions that the Israeli occupation forces announced that they would not hesitate to shoot live bullets at young men who would try to infiltrate the openings of the wall in West Bank cities.
Abboud ignored many communications that warned him not to go, and he continued his journey for many considerations, as he told us, including that the situation in Al-Aqsa Mosque is dangerous due to the incursions of extremist settlers, and therefore there is an urgent need for Palestinians to travel to him from the Palestinians who can find a way to him, including his intense longing To pray and pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the blessed month of Ramadan, like thousands of Palestinians who seek to perform their annual rituals in Jerusalem.
Ignoring the warnings, Abboud arrived at Al-Aqsa smoothly he did not expect, and determined the most appropriate time and appropriate door to avoid arrest: "I prostrated thanks to God after entering the mosque with such ease, and my feelings overflowed and extinguished the flames of my absence from the mosque for a long time."
Aboud prayed and ate his breakfast in the mosque’s courtyard and met his Jerusalemite companions in the squares, but soon violent confrontations erupted due to the Israeli occupation forces storming the mosque on the second Friday night of Ramadan, during which more than 150 worshipers were injured.
Abboud spoke of the violence that befell the worshipers that night, as he witnessed, saying: "For the first time I see such violent confrontations, dozens of rubber bullets were fired inside the al-Qibli prayer hall almost every minute, and everyone was injured by at least one of them, and within five hours of the siege we were inhaling Just tear gas."
Abboud and his comrades were energized by a call to “You, O Aqsa,” but after hours of steadfastness, the soldiers managed to storm one of the mosque’s doors with a large number of heavily armed men.
"It was as if hearts reached our throats.. They put us in the corner of the prayer hall, and we were beaten, then they asked us to surrender ourselves. We had no choice but to surrender ourselves while we were unarmed in front of the forces with their number and equipment," this is how Abboud described his night.
Aboud was arrested with his companions and subjected to severe beatings and abuse. He saw a colleague in the university being beaten relentlessly by an Israeli soldier against the bus wall, and another friend who almost passed out due to the severe restrictions imposed by the occupation soldiers.
Abboud told us about an incident of intimidation by an Israeli Druze soldier who spoke Arabic, saying that during the search of this young man, the soldier noticed the cover of his mobile phone, and found on it a picture of the martyr and the Palestinian leader, "Yahya Ayyash." The cover was written with the phrase "Ayyash is alive, no less than Ayyash." Die".
Soon, the soldier threatened him with two years imprisonment because of the photo, and when the Palestinian youth shouted at the soldier in his colloquial tone, saying: "Leave it for three years... it doesn't make a difference with me."
In the end, Palestinian lawyers succeeded in securing the release of all detainees.
Musa.. the march towards Al-Aqsa continues
Like his companions, the 26-year-old "Musa Nasser" sat in his house in Ramallah, and started thinking about taking a new trip to Al-Aqsa Mosque before the month of Ramadan ended, as he used to travel to occupied Jerusalem since he was a boy ten years ago.
At first, Musa came back with us in his memory to his first trip towards Jerusalem, in which he said that he realized what it means to reach Al-Aqsa. He said: “I was at the time in the second grade of secondary school, and I arrived alone at the mosque, and without exaggeration, I felt a spirituality, tranquility and serenity that I did not find anywhere else. From before".
From his memory, too, Musa told about Ramadan for the years 2016 and 2017, when he was able to spend the whole month of Ramadan in Al-Aqsa Mosque at that time.
“Staying for 30 days inside Al-Aqsa was like living in a piece of paradise, the more times I reached Al-Aqsa, the more feelings of attachment to this place.”
However, the most difficult situations passed by Moses in 2019, the day he decided to practice his usual rituals in Ramadan by going daily to Al-Aqsa Mosque, but falling from the wall injured him with fractures in his hand and foot, and he recounted the details of that sad year, saying: “I climbed to the wall by a rope, and when I finished The rope was suddenly cut, and I fell and broke my hands and feet. It was a heavy blow, and despite the intensification of pain I continued to reach Al-Aqsa, and when I went to the mosque clinic, I was asked to return to Ramallah quickly for my fractures."
Musa Nasser was among the group that reached Al-Aqsa one week before the current month of Ramadan, and he tried to reach the mosque several times on the first Friday of Ramadan, until he reached the wall of the town of Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem, and climbed to the wall there by a rope again, but he did not It falls this time, but it was found that the occupation forces put up a new fence in a precedent of its kind.
Musa did not despair, so he went with his companions to the opening of "Ni'lin" (northwest of Ramallah), then the opening of the town of "Midya" (west of Ramallah).
On the last night of their attempts, the operation of the martyr "Raad Hazem" took place on "Dizengoff Street" in central Tel Aviv, and Musa then felt that there was more stress and danger coming on the way in retaliation against the Palestinians, which prompted him to return to his home in the hope of success in a near future.
Concluding his speech, Moussa told us: “I have experience with the wall since 2012, and I knew it before the openings existed. No such fence has been put in place before, but after the recent operations it seems that the Israeli strictness to prevent us from reaching Al-Aqsa will increase, but this will not hinder the attempts of Rabat at Al-Aqsa.