Women mourn during the funeral procession of Taysir Qatari at the Al Amari refugee camp near Ramallah yesterday.

AFP/Jerusalem

Israel yesterday dismantled a newly erected wooden access ramp to Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque compound that would have increased access for non-Muslims but angered Jordan.

The half-built structure was erected by Israel in the midst of the Gaza conflict in early August, triggering outrage from Jordan which oversees Muslim heritage sites in Jerusalem. 

It ran alongside a bigger wooden structure—the Mughrabi ramp—that leads from the Western Wall plaza up to the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Mughrabi ramp is the only access to the plaza for non-Muslims.

Anything that is viewed as changing the status quo in or around the flashpoint Al Aqsa compound, which houses the third-holiest site in Islam, is highly sensitive and triggers a strong response from Jordan. 

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered that the new structure be removed, saying its construction was “illegal” and had never received the proper authorisation, a government source said. 

That move was hailed by Jordan and by yesterday afternoon most of the new ramp had been taken down.

The ramp’s construction is a politically charged issue because each side claims authority over it. 

Israel argues that because the ramp is located outside the Al Aqsa compound, it should oversee the construction. 

And Jordan insists that since the ramp leads to the mosque compound, it should manage or at least be consulted over any new construction plans.

Archaeologist Yonatan Mizrahi who runs Emek Shaveh, an Israeli NGO opposed to the “politicisation” of archaeology, said the structure was believed to be the beginning of a permanent ramp built “without co-ordination with the Waqf or with Jordan”.

Jordan’s Waqf is the religious body that oversees the compound and other Islamic sites in Jerusalem.

“We think it was the start of a new, permanent ramp,” he said.

The existing Mughrabi ramp, which is also wooden on a metal framework, was built in 2004 after its predecessor collapsed. 

Negotiations between Israel, Jordan, Washington and other players over a permanent replacement began in 2007.

Although the sides came close to reaching a deal, the talks ultimately collapsed, Mizrahi explained.

The ramp whose construction began in early August was located at the exact site where the permanent structure was to have stood, he said.

Amman’s authority over the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem is anchored in the 1994 Israeli-Jordan peace treaty.

In 2011, the UN cultural agency (Unesco) decided that all parties should be involved in the ramp’s design process and that neither side should take any unilateral actions that could affect the character of the site.

“Any unilateral move is perceived as a violation of the agreements between the two countries,” an Emek Shaveh paper said.

 

Palestinian killed by troops in West Bank

AFP/Ramallah

A Palestinian was shot dead early yesterday in clashes which broke out when Israeli troops entered a West Bank refugee camp near Ramallah, sources on both sides said. 

Palestinian medics and security sources named him as Taysir Qatari, 22, and said he had been hit in the chest by gunfire during stone-throwing clashes after soldiers entered Al Amari camp on an arrest mission.

An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed troops had entered the camp on a mission to arrest a Hamas operative, saying they came under attack by a group of some 50 Palestinians with “rocks, Molotov cocktails and burning tyres”.

“They identified one Palestinian who tried to throw an explosive device at them so in response they opened fire,” she said, indicating he was hit and evacuated for medical treatment but later died. 

Qatari’s death raises to 41 the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the beginning of 2014, figures released by the UN humanitarian agency OCHA show.

*Israeli pathologists were conducting an autopsy yesterday on the body of a Palestinian prisoner a day after he allegedly hanged himself in jail, a claim rejected by his family and officials.

Israel Prisons Service (IPS) said on Tuesday that Raed Abdel Salam al-Jaabari, 35, hanged himself in a bathroom at Eshel prison in southern Israel and died en route to hospital. 

But the Ramallah-based Palestinian Prisoners Club described his death as “mysterious” and called for an independent investigation.

Jaabari’s family also rejected the claim he had taken his own life.

Around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel were refusing food in a strike to protest Jaabari’s death, IPS spokesman Sivan Weizman said.

IPS figures show that as of July 31 there were 5,383 Palestinians being held by Israel for security offences, among them 446 held without charge under so-called administrative detention orders.

Such orders can be renewed indefinitely for six-month periods with prisoners not told the charges and therefore unable to challenge them.