Human Lives Human Rights: A heart wrenching incident took place at the al-Yusufiye cemetery in East Jerusalem on Monday, when a Palestinian woman resisted Israeli forces trying to push her from her son’s grave.
The woman, Alaa Nababta (54) reached the graveyard after she learnt that Israeli forces are planning to raze the graves. The Israeli forces assaulted her in a bid to prevent her from entering the cemetery ahead of bulldozing it.
When the Israeli forces tried to pull her away from her son’s grave, she laid on the ground besides the grave. She was also heard crying “Bury me here”, Anadolu Agency reported.
The mother was holding on to her son’s grave with agony and despair filling her eyes while attempting to prevent the oppressive Israeli occupation from demolishing and desecrating her son’s grave.
She told reporters a female Israeli soldier physically assaulted her and prevented her from entering the cemetery to protect her son’s grave, as the occupation was demolishing said cemetery. “Even the dead were not spared from the savage occupation’s brutality,” the mother mourned.
The scene was heart-shattering, and it goes to show the extent to which the Israeli occupation is willing to go to serve its colonialist purpose on Palestinian territory, for as the mother said in sorrow over her loved one’s resting place: Even the dead were not spared.
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أم فلسطينية تتشبّث بقبرِ ابنها الذي يُحاول الاحتلال جرفه! pic.twitter.com/LN67IcRWl5— #سعوديون_مع_الاقصى (@Saudis2018) October 25, 2021
On Monday, when razing of the part of the cemetery which is located near Masjid Al-Aqsa began for the construction of Jewish National Park, she reached the spot. Other Palestinians whose relative’s graves are located in the cemetery also reached the spot.
Many graves located in Al-Yusufiye Cemetery which is one of the oldest graveyards in Jerusalem have been bulldozed earlier.
The Committee for the Care of Islamic Cemeteries in Jerusalem has made multiple attempts to stop the razing activities. Recently, it approached the Israeli court. However, the objections over the razing activities have been rejected.
The Israeli occupation had exhumed several graves on October 11, leading to the exposure of remains, which Jerusalemites had returned to their graves following the desecration.
Israeli staff surrounded the parameter of the cemetery, which the municipality of occupied al-Quds wants to bulldoze in favor of building a “Bible Trail.” The area the ‘trail’ will be covering is around 29 dunums.
The al-Yusufiya Cemetry is the most renowned Islamic cemetery in the Holy City, and this attack on it as a resting place for the dead constitutes a violation of the rights of Muslims not only in occupied Al-Quds but all over occupied Palestine.
Human Lives Human Rights calls on international community to react over the heinous crime by the Israeli authorities.
