The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement-Hamas said that the plans announced by the Israeli municipality in Jerusalem about linking the western and eastern Israeli settlements in the city Jerusalem by light train trail are another colonial project added to the Israeli Judaisation and settlement schemes.

Hamas added in its statement, a copy of which obtained by Safa, that this project which is planned to connect the different parts of Jerusalem with other Palestinian cities occupied in 1948, such as Tal al-Rabia, Jafa, and Haifa, highlights the Israeli insistence to impose the status quo on the ground and its determination to go ahead with its Judaisation plans.

"It is also aimed at imposing full Israeli sovereignty on occupied Jerusalem, separating it from the occupied West Bank, and changing its historic, Arab, and Islamic features, as planned in Trump’s Deal of the Century," the movement underscored.

Moreover, it stressed that Jerusalem should be the core of all Palestinian projects and programmes led by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), the Palestinian Authority (PA) and other Palestinian factions. All Palestinian factions should develop a joint strategy to defend the holy city.

"We strongly condemn any Israeli settlement or Judaisation project on our occupied lands, above all in occupied Jerusalem," the movement highlighted. "Jerusalem will remain an Arab and Islamic city and an integral part of Palestine."

In addition, it said that the increasing settlement activity in Jerusalem is one of the outcomes of the normalization agreements between some Arab countries and Israel that encouraged the latter to annex more Palestinian lands.

Hamas called on the Palestinian people living in occupied 1948 territories to visit and stay in Al-Aqsa in a bid to block the Israeli plans.

It also called on the PA to shoulder its responsibility towards Jerusalem by supporting the Palestinian people there against the Israeli expansion and settlement plans.

"We demand the international community and the European Union to put pressure on the Israeli occupation to stop its colonial projects in occupied Jerusalem that are illegal according to international law" the statement concluded.

Source : Safa