Abu Halabia: IOA announcement on Aqsa tunnels test for Arab and Muslim reaction

GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian lawmaker and chairman of the Jerusalem committee in the PLC MP Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabia has described Wednesday the Israeli announcement of digging two tunnels under the Aqsa Mosque as "test for Arabs and Muslims". In an interview with the PIC on Wednesday, Abu Halabia explained that the Israeli efforts to judaize the city rapidly and noticeably intensified, including destroying more Palestinian Jerusalemite homes and forcing more families out of the city. He stressed that the Israeli excavations under the third holiest shrine for Muslims reached alarming levels, and started to threaten foundations of the Mosque. "The Israeli occupation government doesn't need to announce or consult any party about its schemes against the Aqsa; yet, the latest Israeli declaration of digging two tunnels under the Aqsa Mosque was meant to gauge the pulse in the Arab and Muslim street on those excavations", he pointed out. The lawmaker added that he sent letters to the OIC, and Arab League general secretaries, in addition to a number of Arab leaders and speakers of Arab and European parliaments to explain the dangers that engulf the Aqsa Mosque and the city of Jerusalem. The Aqsa foundation for endowment and heritage that exposed the Israeli tunnel schemes asserted that one of the tunnels would be 56-meter long, while the second would extend for 22 meters with the aim to link the Palestinian Al-Sharaf suburb in the occupied city, which is now called the Jewish suburb after Israeli occupied it and forced its Palestinian inhabitants out of it at gunpoint, to the Buraq Plaza, west of the "Buraq (Wailing) Wall". In a related matter, Palestinian minister for endowment and religious affairs in Gaza city Dr. Taleb Abu Sha'ar described the Israeli decision of demolishing more Palestinian homes in the Shafat refugee camp, north of Jerusalem city, as another Israeli step to empty the city of its indigenous Palestinian inhabitants and to induce drastic demographic changes in favor of the Jews in the city. He pointed out that the Israeli timing of the demolition order during the visit of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton to occupied Palestine was a deliberate step to give American legitimacy for such actions, adding that destroying more Palestinian homes constitutes a big blow to those "gasping behind the mirage of peace with the occupying enemy". He said that the Israeli government uses the futile negotiations with the Abbas and his installed PA government in Ramallah to buy time, accusing the Israeli occupation of not being concerned with peace. In this regard, Abu Sha'ar urged Palestinian and Arab parties to rethink their stands regarding the "peace process" that brought the Palestinian issue to this miserable level and paved the way for the Israeli occupation government to gobble up more lands and to expand settlements in the West Bank.