By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer
 
At least three Palestinians were killed by gunfire, and more than a hundred injured, in clashes with Israeli forces on Friday, during large-scale protests against enhanced security measures at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Thousands of Palestinians were denouncing security devices Israeli regime installed at the mosque after an attack near the Lions’ Gate entrance last week. In response to Friday’s protests, at least 3,000 members of Israeli forces were deployed, and Tel Aviv banned all Palestinians from entering the Old City.
For the past week, Palestinians have come to pray at the Lions’ Gate entrance and, because of the newly-installed devices, have refused to enter the mosque, which is part of the holy site known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount.
The latest violence serves as further proof that time for the international community to stop fuelling human rights violations in occupied Palestine is now. That could happen only through ending institutional impunity.
It is in line with this policy that Israel deliberately continues to provoke Arab states by military operations and covert terrorist actions. It also provokes Palestinians by continued desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as raids, arrests and attacks against their property.
As international human rights groups hold, the current situation cannot be explained, addressed or remedied without a clear-eyed look at its root causes, which remain Israel’s violations of international law and brutal control of the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The international civil society should withdraw support from the bloodshed by halting military aid, political backing and institutionalized impunity for Israel. The root cause for all this and more is this: Israel’s continued violations of international law, including its brutal and illegal military occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories that has lasted decades and its racist policies against Palestinian citizens of the Holy Land.
Palestinians have taken to the streets to tell the world that they are no longer willing to remain accustomed to Israel’s continued confiscation of their land and the displacement of its inhabitants; the demolition of their homes; the aggressive expansion of settler colonies; settler violence against Palestinians and their mosque facilitated by the regime; torture and ill-treatment; and increasing numbers of arbitrary arrests and administrative detentions.
To fight back, the criminal occupation is intensifying, with Israeli forces sealing off Palestinian neighborhoods and places of worship; imposing more severe sentencing guidelines for people accused of stone-throwing; and using excessive force — including live fire — against peaceful crowds of protesters.
The Palestinian civil society is now calling on the international community to take steps to halt this systemic violence and apartheid. This needs to be heeded in the United States too. It is American weapons and diplomatic support at the UN that enable Israel to carry out its illegal policies of extrajudicial assassination, collective punishment and colonization of Palestinian land. Simply put, the usurper regime is just a gopher.