By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

Over a week ago, in our Viewpoint Column of April 7, we had spoken of blasphemous terrorism in the sacred shrine of Prophet Muhammad’s (SAWA) 8th Infallible Heir, Imam Reza (AS), in Mashhad, where a US-Israeli takfiri agent shed innocent Muslim blood.
In that column we had also referred to the almost daily desecration of the al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied city of Bayt al-Moqaddas by the Zionist occupiers, who have now embarked on organized terrorism at Islam’s 3rd holiest site –emboldened by Israel’s growing ties with the Aal-e Khalifa and Aal-e Nahyan regimes of the Persian Gulf, if not direct instructions for sacrilege in Palestine from Manama and Abu Dhabi.
Whatever the facts and behind-the-scenes ploys that could be traced to the corridors of power in Washington, on Friday the sanctity of the al-Aqsa Mosque was again defiled in the fasting month of Ramadhan by the dirty Israeli troops who disrupted a peaceful gathering of Muslim worshippers after the early dawn prayer by attacking them with batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets to injure at least 158 Palestinians.
As usual, the Muslim world verbally condemned the latest sacrilege at al-Aqsa Mosque, but without any plans for any coordinated practical moves on the ground, to peals of laughter at this impotence from the Zionists and the Americans, now joined by the treasonous Arab clan leaders from the Persian Gulf.
The only thing that is worrying the Israelis in their merry killing of Palestinians over the past few days in the West Bank prior to Friday’s foray into the sacred precincts of the al-Aqsa Mosque, is the statement from Gaza by the Palestinian freedom-fighting movements, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and others, who have the rockets to respond to such acts of terrorism.
They had made the Zionists taste Palestinian retaliation last year in the operations codenamed Sword of “Bayt al-Moqaddas” following the Israeli atrocities in the Sheikh al-Jarrah neighbourhood, and could now use some of their rapidly improving projectiles to target the Zionist criminals.
The wording of the warning is clear: “We will draw the line again in defence of Bayt al-Moqaddas and we will launch a new era; weapons for weapons, and force will only be met by force, and we will defend the sanctity of al-Aqsa by all our might.”
The Palestinian combatant groups campaigning for liberation of their homeland should know that they are not alone in this holy struggle.
Lebanon’s legendry anti-terrorism movement, the Hezbollah, with its sophisticated arsenal is also with them, and so is Yemen’s popular Ansarullah Movement, whose state-of-the-art means of defence will definitely be at the service of the oppressed Palestinian people.
Then there is the Hashd ash-Sha’bi or the Popular Mobilization Force of Iraq, whose groups such as Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Harakat Hezbollah an-Nujaba have already made public their vowed vengeance against Israel’s crimes against Islamic sanctities.
One of the statements from Baghdad reads: “Iraqi resistance forces are fully prepared to do whatever is necessary to ensure the continuation of the Palestinian struggle until the usurping Israeli regime is annihilated.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran definitely supports the mobilization of forces all over the Muslim world for the cherished goal of liberation of Islam’s former qibla or direction of prayer, and has made it clear to the UN that the only peaceful and democratic solution to the chronic question of Palestine is a referendum for one single country and government, and the exit of all Jews of foreign origin from the land.