Israel accused of "massacring" Palestinians, destroying holy sites, heritage theft, and expelling non-Jews from Jerusalem
Headline: “The [PA] Islamic-Christian Council: 37 years since the Sabra and Shatila massacre and the Palestinian right will not die”
“The [PA] Islamic-Christian Council for Jerusalem and the Holy Places today (Sunday) [Sept. 15, 2019] emphasized the cruelty of the occupation and of its violation of all the international norms and laws. It pointed out that the Sabra and Shatila massacre (see note below –Ed.), the 37th anniversary of which is today, is only one of the hundreds of massacres and crimes that the occupation is committing against the Palestinian people and its holy sites on a daily basis.
Council Secretary-General [and Fatah Revolutionary Council member] Hanna Issa emphasized that the occupation authorities, through their ongoing harming of occupied Jerusalem, plan to harm the sanctity of the Islamic and Christian holy sites and attack them by burning, destroying, and defiling them. This is in addition to the theft of an entire culture with all of its details and antiquities. In addition to this, networks of tunnels are being excavated under the Old City of the occupied city [of Jerusalem], and particularly under the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (sic., Israel does not excavate under the Temple Mount; see note below), which lays the groundwork for a despicable crime and massacre targeting the First Direction of Prayer and the third holiest site in Islam. This is in addition to continuing the policy of expelling the residents of Jerusalem and taking over their homes and lands by force.”
Sabra and Shatila are Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. In 1982, during the first Lebanon War, Muslim residents of the camps were massacred by Christian Phalangists. The PA has a longstanding policy of falsely accusing Israel of committing the massacre or actively helping to carry it out.
Excavations under the Temple Mount - The Israeli daily Haaretz has stated that the excavations do not reach beneath the mosque: "Despite complaints from the Islamic Movement and Palestinian groups, not a single dig penetrates beneath the [Temple] Mount." [Haaretz, May 24, 2016]