Latest Attack on Palestinian Heritage: ’Israel’ Opens Museum in Old Mosque
Local Editor
In the latest "Israeli" efforts to stifle Palestinian culture, authorities in the "Israeli"-occupied city of Bir al-Sabaa [Beersheba] recently converted a historical mosque into an Islamic museum, despite the fact that 10,000 local Palestinian Muslims have nowhere to pray, locals said.
Locals told Ma'an news agency that an exhibit showcasing a collection of Muslim prayer rugs was recently opened in the building that was formerly the Great Mosque of Bir al-Sabaa, which was once used regularly as a house of worship before the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their land in 1948.
The exhibit, which locals say has no Arab or Muslim member on the technical supervisory team, will continue until June 2015.
The move comes after decades of protest from the area's 10,000-strong Palestinian Muslim community, composed primarily of local Bedouins whose ancestors survived the "Israeli" expulsions as well as Palestinian with "Israeli" citizenship who have moved to the city from other parts of the country.
Representatives of the community have long petitioned "Israeli" authorities to allow them to open the mosque for daily prayers or at least once a week for Friday prayers. However, their demands were repeatedly rejected.
The Great Mosque of Beersheba, a town originally known as Bir al-Sabaa, was built in 1906 during the Ottoman era with donations collected from the Bedouin residents of al-Naqb.
It remained an active mosque until the "Israelis" occupied the city in 1948 and turned it into a detention center and headquarters for a magistrate court, following the expulsion of Bir al-Sabaa approximately 6,000 Palestinian residents, most of whom fled to Gaza.
Thousands of Zionist settlers were subsequently brought into the city, while the Palestinian refugees were never allowed to return, despite many of them living only kilometers away.
In 1953, the "Israeli" authorities turned a portion of the mosque into a museum.
In 1992, the museum was shut down because the building had become vulnerable. However, it was retrofitted recently, paving the way for its reuse.
On December 10, "Israel" resumed excavations in a Muslim graveyard in West al-Quds as part of the "Museum of Tolerance" project.
So far in 2014, "Israel" has demolished more than 543 Palestinian structures and displaced at least 1,266 people, according to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs [UNOCHA].
Following "Israel's" summer aggression against Gaza, many of Strip's ancient sites, including houses of worship, tombs and cemeteries, were left in ruins.
Gaza's historic mosques, dating back to the time of the first Islamic caliphs and the Ottoman Empire, were the worst affected.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs, "Israel" targeted mosques on purpose, partially damaging 130 mosques and completely destroying 73.
The destruction of Gaza's ancient mosques has brought the total losses incurred by the religious affairs ministry to an estimated $50 million.
Besides destroying historical sites, "Israel" encroaches on Palestinian spaces and heritage in the name of tourism.
Following its expulsion of Palestinians in 1948, "Israel" rewrote maps, changed the names of Palestinian towns and streets, and tailored their own versions of history very early on so as to counter future generation of Palestinians.
On Sunday, the "Israeli" Knesset's finance committee voted through $3.3 million to build a tourist center in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, a statement said.
The money is for a project at the Barkan settlement in the north of the Palestinian territory, the Knesset statement said.
While major Palestinian cities have boomed in the past 26 years, Israeli confiscation of land in border regions has continued unabated.
According to a UN report published in early December, the PA lost at least $310 million in customs and sales tax in 2011 as a result of importing from or through "Israeli"-occupied territories.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
