Am I Not a Human? (7): The Suffering of Jerusalem & the Holy Sites under the Israeli Occupation: ‘Mu‘anat al-Quds w al-Muqaddasat taht al-ihtilal al-Israeli - معاناة القدس والمقدسات تحت الاحتلال الإسرائيلي

“The Suffering of Jerusalem and Holy Sites under the Israeli Occupation” is the seventh in Am I Not a Human? series. The previous books include book #1 on the Israeli racism, #2 on the suffering of the Palestinian Children, #3 on women, #4 on prisoners, #5 on massacres, #6 on refugees, #7 on Jerusalem, #8 on the separation wall, #10 on the worker and #11 on the patient, with remaining three issues in preparation.

The book falls in 142 pages and is written by Dr. Mohsen Moh’d Saleh. It documents the suffering of the holy city, holy in Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and its population under the Israeli Occupation; in addition to the Occupation’s infringements on other Muslim and Christian holy sites in Palestine generally.

The book presents a historic and legal background on the issue of Jerusalem, since its occupation, including documented narratives of the occupation of the city and the continuous forced displacement of its population, in addition to documents that prove the illegality and de-legitimacy of the Occupation.

The book also considers the Israeli infringements on Al-Aqsa Mosque, including excavations beneath and near the Mosque that threaten its infrastructure, the breakings into the Mosque, the expropriation of its areas and of neighbouring homes and neighborhoods, and the continuous attempts of the occupation to transform it into an open site for Jews and tourists, thus depriving its religious sanctity to Muslims.

Additionally, the book describes the Israeli Occupation’s practices in the issue of Judaizing Jerusalem and imposing a Jewish façade on the city instead of its currently Muslim-Christian dominant Arab identity; and works in constructing a parallel “holy” Jewish city in the project named “Jerusalem first”.

The Occupation’s settlement expansion in Jerusalem is also among the major issues considered by the book, not to mention the various planning schemes that aim at isolating Jerusalem from its Palestinian neighboring villages and from the West Bank more generally, and the expropriation of vast lands around Jerusalem to annex them to its municipal borders.