IOA continues to desecrate Mamanullah cemetery

 OCCUPIED JERUSALEM,– The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) is still unearthing and destroying the ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, the Mamanullah (or Mamillah) graveyard, the committee for reconstruction of Muslim cemeteries in Jerusalem said.

It charged the IOA in a statement on Monday with sending its municipality bulldozers to the graveyard in western Jerusalem to cover it with a thick layer of wood shavings.

Mustafa Abu Zuhra, the committee’s chairman, rushed to the scene and halted work of the bulldozers, the statement said, adding that Abu Zuhra contacted the municipality and asked it to remove the wood shavings.

Abu Zuhra charged that the IOA was repeating previous attempts to wipe out the cemetery as it had done with 70% of its western area and turned it into the independence park.

He said that the Mamanullah cemetery’s area was reduced from 180 dunums into 19 dunums only, noting that 18 dunums were sold to the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center to build the Museum of Tolerance.

Abu Zuhra asked the Arab countries to support the cemetery which is in need of maintenance.