Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine condemns brutal action by Israel

The Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine (SLCSP) in a statement yesterday strongly condemned 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 hundreds of Palestinian families in the nearby Sheikh Jarrah area to make way for forcible and illegal Israeli settlements.       

Following are excerpts from the statement by SLCSP issued by Co-Chairman Bimal Ratnayaka and General Secretary M. Fawzer Farook:

According to 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. This attack injured nearly 200 Palestinian worshippers engaged in Ramadan 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 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 has become the latest hotspot of the decades-long illegal Israeli settlements drive. Hundreds of Palestinian families face eviction with Israeli court rulings favouring Jewish settlers waiting to set up home in place of the original Palestinian residences once they are evicted. 

The illegal Israeli settler programme is especially offensive to humanity given the genocidal and ethnic cleansing implications of such a racially targeted eviction policy.  

The committee calls on the Sri Lanka Government to join the world community in condemning these barbaric and illegal actions by Israel and, express the outrage of the Sri Lankan people against the continuing apartheid-style occupation of Palestine by Israel. 

The committee also calls on 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 demands that the Israeli occupying authorities fulfil their international law obligations with regard to people under occupation and facilitate full and continuous access to the Al Aqsa Mosque and precincts to all the people, including worshippers, in accordance with traditional practice.

The committee calls on the United Nations to fulfil its responsibilities to the colonised people of Palestine in this un-resolved crisis of decolonisation.