Occupied Jerusalem- Jerusalemite Raida Al-Sa’u will be forced to forcibly imprison herself and her children, from noon on Saturday until sunset on Sunday, so that tens of thousands of settlers can celebrate the Jewish “Feast of the Torch”, the central celebrations of which were moved this year to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem.
The “Feast of the Torch” falls 33 days after the Jewish Passover, and traditional bonfires are lit on it on the eve of the so-called revival of “the Jewish revolution against the Romans in the land of Palestine led by Shimon Barkokhba in the year 132 AD, 62 years after the destruction of the Second Temple,” according to their claims.
This holiday symbolizes the ears of wheat harvest that were presented to the priests on the first day of Easter. The torch lighting ceremony is held in two main places: the area of the tomb of “Simon Al-Sadiq” in Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem, and in the occupied village of Meron, west of the city of Safed, northern Palestine.
As in all Jewish holidays, extremist Temple groups involve Al-Aqsa Mosque in their celebrations, during which they storm its grounds. The settlers also burn wood and ears of wheat in a specific place inside Al-Buraq Square, forcibly designated for Jewish prayer.
The so-called Israeli “Western Wall Heritage Foundation” announced that this event will take place at exactly 8:30 pm next Sunday.
Because celebrations in Safed were prohibited this year due to the war conditions and the outbreak of the northern front, all celebrations were moved to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which was afflicted by settlement.
Prison and terror
When asked about the difficulty of this holiday for the neighborhood’s residents, Raeda Al-Sa’u described the life of the people of Sheikh Jarrah during the “Torch” celebrations as “hell, prison, and horror.”
Behind these words is a torrent of fears that the neighborhood’s residents are already experiencing, starting with their imprisonment due to the complete closure of all roads leading to their homes and the main streets surrounding them, passing through the state of terror due to settlers’ attacks on the neighborhood’s people and their property, and ending with attacks by the occupation police and special forces, thousands of whom are deployed to secure… Settlers’ celebrations.
Al-Sa’u spoke to Al-Jazeera Net about some of what people are exposed to every year during this holiday, saying, “We are sentenced to prison. We do not go to work, not even to medical clinics, and the roads are closed in front of us, and although the police provide us with cards that allow us to pass to our homes, if we go out and want to return, they say that… Overcrowding does not help them open the roads so we can reach the homes.”
Not only that, but most of the settlers who participate in the celebrations of this holiday annually are extremists who harbor hatred and hatred for the Arabs, and most of them carry weapons that terrorize the residents of the neighborhood, as the settlers penetrate into hotspots between the homes of Jerusalemites.
Raeda moves between the rooms of her house to observe everything that is going on around it, and sometimes climbs onto its roof and walks around it to protect it and the car and trees from burning or stone throwing, or from a surprise attack by settlers.
The Jerusalemite citizen confirmed that the extremist settlers in the neighborhood receive direct support from the extremist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, who set up a tent two and a half years ago a few meters from her home. This extremist minister provides protection for the settlers who riot in the eastern and western parts of Sheikh Jarrah, day and night. .
False legends
Saleh Dhiyab – a resident of Sheikh Jarrah, who was recently issued a decision to evict him from his home in favor of the settlers – touched on other aspects of the residents’ suffering during the “Torch” holiday.
Dhiyab says that they cannot sleep because of the loud celebrations, dancing, and singing until after midnight, in addition to the fact that he is forced to evacuate his family from the house during the holidays, as settlers go to the grave of “Shimon Al-Siddiq,” which is adjacent to his house, for fear of being exposed to stone throwing and constant throwing of waste.
Because the police automatically side with the settlers, Dhiab no longer files complaints against the violations he is exposed to, as he finds himself ultimately accused and detained.
He added, “This grave, which they claim is sacred to the Jews, is the nail of Juha that they placed to control the region. I have been parking my vehicle inside this cave for decades, and with the rise of Ariel Sharon (2001-2006) to power in Israel, interest in it has increased remarkably.”
The Jewish narrative claims that the tomb, located inside a cave, belongs to Simeon the Just, or Simeon the Righteous, who it says was the high priest during the era of the “Second Temple” and the time of Alexander the Great (313 BC), and it sings of his famous morals and proverbs contained in the Oral Torah (Mishna).
These allegations are refuted by a document drawn up in the Sharia Court in Jerusalem in the year 1733, proving that Sheikh Al-Siddiq bin Ubaid bin Salama Al-Saadi purchased the land containing the cave from Abdullah Basha Ghubari, so that he would later use it as his retreat, and his disciples would gather there to study his Sufi path, and it would then be known as the Cave of Sheikh Siddiq. Al-Saadi, and this document is kept by Al-Maqdisi Darwish Suleiman Hijazi Al-Saadi, and Al-Jazeera Net previously viewed it.
Political choice
Regarding the implications of moving all the central celebrations this year to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, the researcher specializing in Jerusalem affairs, Fakhri Abu Dhiyab, said that the occupation took advantage of the war on Gaza and found in it a golden opportunity to transfer the celebrations to an Arab region, specifically in East Jerusalem, and that the matter goes beyond simply choosing an alternative location for Safad. .
He added, “They wanted to distort the public space, introduce traces of Jewish culture and religion, and bring in more settlers to change the Arab character of the neighborhood, confuse its people, and tighten the pressure on them. I believe that the choice is purely political.”
Al-Maqdisi researcher touched on the intentional setting of fires for this holiday in Al-Buraq Square, as this sends a direct message that sovereignty in the area adjacent to Al-Aqsa is Israeli. The suffocation and encirclement of Al-Aqsa is evident with the commemoration of every memory and the celebration of every occasion.
The Israeli human rights organization “Ir Amim” posted on its Facebook page that the celebration held every year on the Torch Festival constitutes a disturbance to the Palestinian residents of the neighborhood, and that this year it is expected that tens of thousands of Jewish revelers will arrive at the place.
She said that the series of government bodies working with settler organizations to Judaize “East Jerusalem” are taking advantage of this opportunity to promote settlement in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood, and that settlers will flock in the late night hours of Saturday.
It is likely that the settlers will celebrate very noisily with a musical band amidst fire and smoke, while the Palestinian residents will be forced to hide in their homes, hoping that no one will take advantage of this public event to harm their property, break into their homes, or abuse them, which has happened more than once in similar events in the past.
She pointed out, “It is naive to say that this is just a religious event. Rather, it is a policy of exploiting religious events or establishing tourist complexes in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods to bring large numbers of visitors, and thus strengthen the most extremist settlements.”