© Xinhua/Yasser QudihPalestinians attend a rally calling for protecting al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem after the Friday prayer in Gaza City, on Nov. 25, 2011.
Called on by the Islamic Hamas movement, which rules the coastal enclave, and the less influential Islamic Jihad (Holy War) movement, two separate demonstrations took place in the Gaza Strip.
Coinciding with rallies to support Jerusalem in both Jordan and Egypt, demonstrators in the Gaza Strip called on the Muslim and Arab nations to move as quickly as possible to rescue the holy city of Jerusalem, saying that Jerusalem is an Arab city and will remain so.
The Al-Aqsa Association for Waqf and Islamic Heritage in Jerusalem had earlier warned in a statement of the recent Israeli measures in East Jerusalem to change the characteristics of the city, mainly destroying the temporary woody bridge near the Mughrabi Gate and building a new bridge. Also, Israel decided late October to demolish an access ramp to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.
Ismail Haneya, premier of the de facto Hamas government, told hundreds of prayers in one of Gaza city's mosques that he calls on the Arab and Islamic nations "to protect Palestine, Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Mosque."
Haneya, who joined the rally afterwards, said that "the millions of people in Jordan, Cairo and Tunis as well as in other Arab countries who took to the streets today in support for Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Mosque are an evidence that this city is Islamic and Arab," Haneya said.
Meanwhile, Mushir al-Masri, a legislature in the Hamas- dominated parliament or the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), told the demonstrators that the revolutions to support al-Aqsa Mosque are melted with the revolutions in the Arab world "in order to get rid of the occupation and the foreign agendas."
"We tell the Islamic and Arab crowds who are joining us right now in support of Jerusalem and against the Israeli occupation measures that ... the flag of Islam will be raised in all Arab world and on the fences of al-Aqsa Mosque," said al-Masri.
Nafze Azzam, a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad movement, called for immediate Arab and Islamic movement to support and back the city of Jerusalem and stop the Israeli measures that aims at Judaizing the city.
It is a big shame that the Arab leaders and the governors are keeping silent over all those years for the siege imposed on Palestine and imprisonment of thousands in Israeli jails, Azzam said, stressing that "achieving the inter-Palestinian reconciliation is so important in this circumstance."
The Islamic Jihad leader called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to completely abandon the peace negotiations with Israel, adding that "this absurd talks had brought to us nothing and obstructed us from achieving our goals of freedom and independence."
The angry demonstrators burned the flags of the United States and Israel, which occupied the east part of Jerusalem in 1967. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future Palestinian state, while Israel says that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jews.
Meanwhile, Mohamed Hussein, the Grand Mufti (great clergy of Muslims) of Jerusalem praised the Arab and Islamic rallies in the Palestinian territories and in the Middle East that support Jerusalem and reject the Israeli measures in the holy city.
"What happens in Jerusalem, mainly Judaizing the city and changing its characteristics as well as building settlements and trying to demolish one of the old city's major gates had urged thousands of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims to rally all over the region against these measures," said Hussein.
The international community doesn't recognize Jerusalem as the capital for the state of Israel although it had declared the city as its eternal capital in 1950. The world's rejection to consider the whole city as the capital of Israel had increased after Israel occupied the eastern part of the city in 1967.
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