Jerusalem’s municipality ordered the excavation of around 200 graves in the city’s largest Islamic cemetery, The Palestinian Information Centre reported. A request by Jerusalem municipality and Land Administration to excavate 220 graves in the city’s historical Islamic cemetery was approved, the Aqsa Foundation informed.
The Israeli Magistrate court authorized the demolition under the pretext that the concerned graves were built fraudulently during a restoration plan, and that the cemetery was purchased under an absentee property law.
The court denied a temporary injunction was filed by the Aqsa Islamic heritage foundation’s lawyer on behalf of the cemetery’s keepers Sami Rizqullah Abu Mukh and Mustafa Abu Zuhra.
A number of key Islamic figures have been buried at the Ma’manullah cemetery.
Four months earlier, the same Israeli court gave the green light to the excavation of 300 other graves after a four-month restoration and maintenance project carried out by the Aqsa Foundation.
