August 21 marks the anniversary of the 1969 al-Aqsa Mosque fire

Today mark the 45th anniversary of the burning of the Al-Aqsa mosque by Australian zionist infidel Denis Michael Rohan.
On August 21, 1969, zionist infidel Rohan entered the mosque and set the Nurrudin Zingi Tribune on fire. According to Ekrima Sabri, Mufti of Al-Quds, the minute news of the fire spread in the Old City of Al-Quds, men, women and children began bringing cans of water and sand to try to put the fire out.
“Israeli authorities banned Civil Defense vehicles in Al-Quds from taking part in putting out the fire, and delayed other vehicles from Al-Khalil, Beitlahm, Ramallah and El-Birehfrom reaching the site,” Sabri said.
The fire lasted for four hours and burned 1500 square meters of the 4400 square meters that comprise the compound of the mosque.
The fired gutted the southeastern wing of the mosque, known as Haram Al Sharif (Noble sanctuary).
The fire also destroyed one-thousand year old wood, and ivory pulpit. After the fire, Jordan fixed the mosque at a cost of nearly 9 million US dollars.
This attack was one in a long list of threats to Islamic holy sites and Muslim presence in Al-Quds before and since. Under Israeli military occupation, Al-Quds’ native Palestinians, Muslims and Christians live under siege.
Zionist authorities routinely subject Palestinians in Al-Quds to forced expulsions, home demolitions, land confiscation, ethnic segregation and seizure of identity cards.
Since March 1993, when Zionist regime imposed a closure on Al-Quds, it has prevented Palestinian Muslims and Christians from entering the holy city without special permits that are nearly impossible to obtain.
These policies are intended to create conditions of psychological and economic pressure such that non-Jews are forced to move out of the city altogether.
Zionist regime is digging 20 tunnels under the Aqsa Mosque in occupied Al-Quds some of which are already open for tourists while others are still under construction, the executive director of Quds Institution, Ziad Al-Hassan, said.
Dr. Talib Abu Sha’ar the minister of endowments and religious affairs said that the city of Al-Quds and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are facing the most treacherous scheme since the Zionist occupation in 1948.
He said, in a statement, that the demolition orders continue to be handed to ‘Jerusalem’ (Qods) citizens on a daily basis, the latest of which was a batch of eight demolition orders handed to eight Palestinian residents of the Selwan neighbourhood to the south of the Aqsa Mosque.