SLCSP calls on government to condemn brutal attacks on Al Aqsa worshippers, illegal West Bank evictions
COLOMBO – The Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine (SLCSP) has strongly condemned the brutal attacks last week by Israeli security forces on Ramadan worshippers at the AL Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and called on the Government of Sri Lanka to join the world community in condemning the barbaric actions by Israel.
In a statement issued on Monday (10), the SLCSP also condemned the latest illegal eviction attempts against Palestinian families in a nearby residential area to make way for forcible Israeli settlement and urged the government to express the outrage of the Sri Lankan people against the continuing Apartheid-style occupation of Palestine by Israel.
The statement in full:
The Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine (SLCSP) strongly condemns the brutal attacks last week by Israeli security forces on Ramadan worshippers at the AL Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third most holy site of Islam. At the same time the Committee condemns the latest illegal eviction attempts against Palestinian families in a nearby residential area to make way for forcible Israeli settlement.
According to news media reports broadcast worldwide and information from Palestine itself, Israeli security forces and police fired tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets into the Mosque precincts last Friday (7). This attack injured at least 178 Palestinian worshippers engaged in Ramazan observances on the final Friday of the period of Fasting. The Committee expresses its horror and condemnation of this human rights and cultural atrocity. Friday’s criminal assault by Israeli forces on the sacred mosque and worshippers was the fourth successive day of such occupying state brutality against civilians in the Palestinian territories illegally occupied by Israel for over 70 years.
These actions by Israeli occupying forces were also extended to the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood that is currently the latest hotspot of the decades-long illegal Israeli settlements drive. Scores of Palestinian families face eviction by Israeli court ruling which is expected to be in favour of another batch of Israeli Jewish settlers waiting to set up home in place of the original Palestinian residents once they are evicted.
The Committee calls on the government to join the world community in condemning these barbaric and illegal actions by Israel and, expressing the outrage of the Sri Lankan people against the continuing Apartheid-style occupation of Palestine by Israel. The illegal Israeli settler program is especially offensive to Humanity given the genocidal and ethnic cleansing implications of such a racially targeted eviction policy.
The Committee also calls on the government of the Kingdom of Jordan to take action in fulfilment of its responsibilities as the official Custodian of holy sites in Jerusalem, including the Al Aqsa Mosque.
The Committee calls on the governments of the United Kingdom and Turkey, as the original colonial powers involved in the hand-over of governance to the newly created state of Israel, as well as the United Nations, to fulfil their responsibilities to the colonized peoples of Palestine in this unresolved crisis of de-colonization.