Hamas joins the Jerusalem revolt

By Louis Imbert

Posted today at 12:32, updated at 16:31

Hamas joined the battle for Jerusalem on Monday, May 10 at 6:01 p.m., firing a seven-rocket salute at the divided capital, which briefly urged the city’s Israelis to take shelter in caves and basements. parkings. From the Gaza Strip, the Islamist movement intended to break the “siege” of the shrine of Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site of Islam, from where the Israeli police violently evacuated the faithful in prayer Monday morning, making 520 injured – 32 police officers had to be treated.

During the day, Hamas issued an ultimatum of unrealistic demand, reformulating the equation in which Jerusalem has been sinking for days into purely military terms. Israel to withdraw its police forces from the Al-Aqsa compound and from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, located in the occupied Palestinian area of ​​the city, where several families are threatened with eviction by the courts, in favor of Israeli settlers .

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The first rockets were intercepted for the most part by the Iron Dome defense system, causing no injuries. Some 250 shots followed until Monday morning, of a more limited range, near Gaza, in return prompting Israeli strikes on 140 targets, the most intense since November 2019. At least 24 Palestinians, including 9 children, were killed. . Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned his fellow citizens that “The current conflict could last for some time.”

Violent clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police took place in Jerusalem, Israel, on May 10, 2021.

Hamas may feel compelled to take such a risk by crossing a red line for Israel. He cannot resign himself to insignificance in the Gaza enclave as images of Al-Aqsa resonate in the Arab world, and as Jerusalem asserts itself as the heart of revived Palestinian resistance. The paradox is that Hamas has little to do with these events: it is a youth without parties or leaders who make themselves heard there.

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Residents of the occupied eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Arab citizens of Israel, coming from Gallilee or the “triangle” of Palestinian cities to the north, can boast of having alone made Israel bend on Monday. They ruined “Jerusalem Day”, during which the state commemorates the conquest of Palestinian neighborhoods during the 1967 war and their annexation. ”

We are the ones who dictate the rules of the game ”

“The Israelis celebrate the ‘reunification’ of the city. This is wrong: Jerusalem is occupied and we have ruined their party! “, welcomes Marwan Zaghal. The 23-year-old lives in Ras Al-Amoud, a better-off neighborhood than his neighbors in East Jerusalem. He is employed in the west of the city, in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish supermarket. Marwan says to himself ” very impressed “ by two of his uncles, members of Hamas, who spent 16 years and 14 years respectively in prison in Israel. But he wants to be independent, and does not recognize himself in the parties of the West Bank and Gaza, which have deserted Jerusalem for more than twenty years.

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