September 12, 2009 - The Jordan Times

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Even in the worst moments in the decades-long conflict and despite the multiple Israeli checkpoints on the road from her house to Al Aqsa Mosque, 78-year-old Jerusalemite Um Basel has hardly ever missed prayers at the shrine.

For the mother of 12 and grandmother of dozens, life is getting more and more difficult under Israeli occupation, but she, like many residents of the city’s outskirts, says praying at the third holiest shrine in Islam is worth the trouble.

Every day since the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, she made the journey all the way from Al Mokabber Mountain neighbourhood in the southern part of Jerusalem to pray at the mosque.

For the past 35 years, Um Basel says, she has been struggling with Israeli restrictions on the movements of Arabs.

"They are making our lives more difficult by imposing new regulations on the people who want to pray at the mosque," she told The Jordan Times on Thursday as she walked up the hill to the mosque, leaning on her walking stick and stopping occasionally to sit on the side of the road to take a rest.

Um Basel, who refused to allow her picture to be published in the media fearing "reprisal" on the part of the Israelis, said she is one of hundreds of Palestinian women who are determined to preserve the Islamic identity of Jerusalem’s holy shrines simply by keeping the rituals alive at the sacred mosque.

But her fellow Palestinian, Falha Kaayebh, or Um Hamdan, who had recently returned from a visit to her relatives in Jordan, said she was barred several times by the Israeli police from going to the mosque. Um Hamdan is a resident of the West Bank and requires a special permit to enter East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied from Jordan in 1967 and later annexed in a move not internationally recognised.

"This is our country and our land," said the 65-year-old woman. "This is not fair. Why do we need permission to visit our mosque?" she wondered, as she showed her ID to an Israeli policeman at a checkpoint at the Asbat Gate.

Once she was let into the mosque, Um Hamdan, dressed in black, sought refuge from the heat in the shade of the nearest tree and wiped the sweat off her brow.

She looked back at the policeman as if she wanted to say something. She looked at the mosque, then up at the sky, and whispered something that made the woman sitting next to her grin.

Heated arguments between worshippers and Israeli police are common scenes, which normally end with intervention by Al Aqsa Mosque guards.

Only 120 guards handle what they describe as the tough task of dealing with the Israeli police stationed permanently at the main gates and checkpoints around the shrine.

The group is employed by the Jordan Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Department in Jerusalem, which has a mandate to supervise the shrine under the 1994 Jordan-Israel peace treaty.

But according to Mohammad Ismail, Abu Firas, head of the Aqsa Mosque guards, the number is far from being enough.

The Jordan-born 65-year-old said the guards' responsibilities are not exclusive to managing or administering the daily work inside the mosque, but also include keeping the shrine’s sanitary conditions up to the highest standards in addition to their jobs as firefighters in case of any fire incidents.

"The Israelis are trying to change facts on the ground. They continue to harass the worshippers for no reason and sometimes we have to interfere at the highest levels to avoid any escalation of the situation," Abu Firas said.

Like Um Basel, Abu Firas and his colleagues have a huge mission: to safeguard the Arab Muslim identity of Jerusalem, which many describe as the spiritual capital of the Muslim world.