Fatah: Israel was behind the 1969 Al-Aqsa arson; “the Mosque constitutes a direct target because it constitutes an obstacle before the baseless Zionist stories, and prime among them the lies regarding the alleged Temple”
Text posted on the official Fatah Facebook page, written by Secretary of Fatah’s Poland Branch Khalil Nazzal
Posted text: “The 50th anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Mosque arson
The Zionist hostility to the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem is not coincidental, but rather a continuous chain of organized crimes since the holy city fell into the hands of the settlement occupation, from the June 1967 War until the attack against the worshippers on the first day of blessed Eid Al-Adha (i.e., “the Sacrifice Feast”) ten days ago (referring to riots by Muslims on the Temple Mount on Aug. 11, 2019, and the Israeli response to them; see note below -Ed.)…
Australian criminal [Michael] Denis Rohan, who was blamed for the arson, was just the display window and the means that they hid behind, in order to make the fingerprints disappear of the true criminal who is directly guilty of the crime, and that is the racist Zionist idea that drives the occupation state in all its elements. The occupation authorities cut off the water in the area surrounding the Al-Aqsa Mosque shortly before the crime (sic., PMW found no evidence for this claim), and its fire engines were delayed in arriving at the scene of the crime and putting out the fire (sic., Israeli firefighters arrived within minutes but rioting Muslims interfered with their work and broke the only fire hydrant at the site). And here it is necessary to thank the [Arab] Jerusalem residents who hurried to save the Al-Aqsa Mosque, transferred water in buckets and household utensils, and thus prevented the spread of the fire to the rest of the mosque’s areas (sic., rioting Muslims obstructed the work of the firefighters who eventually extinguished the fire).
Israel accused the Australian citizen of being responsible for the crime of setting the Al-Aqsa Mosque on fire and accused him of being insane, but the truth that our people has understood since the beginning of the occupation is that the Al-Aqsa Mosque constitutes a direct target because it constitutes an obstacle before the baseless Zionist stories, and prime among them the lies regarding the alleged Temple.”
Michael Rohan - Australian Christian with a mental health disorder who set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969. For years, the Palestinian Authority has falsely accused Israel of setting the fire.
Tisha B'Av 2019 – Muslims rioted on the Temple Mount on Aug. 11, 2019, for the express purpose of preventing Jews from going up to the site on Tisha B'Av (see note below), and were explicitly incited to do so by PA leaders such as PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, who two days prior posted a call on his Facebook page for Muslims in Jerusalem to postpone their holiday observance to the second day of the holiday so that "people will be available to carry out Ribat at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to resist the Israeli plan to invade the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the first day of the holiday (i.e. Tisha B' Av)," adding "Our mosque is our Ribat and the Al-Aqsa Mosque is our Jihad."
Tisha B'Av - Jewish day of mourning commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem (586 BCE and 70 CE) and the forced exile of most of the Jewish people from the land of Israel.