Provocative Jewish symbols on Jerusalem’s city walls

Israel in an alleged project to restore and maintain Jerusalem’s city walls has replaced some of the structure’s original features with stones marked with Jewish biblical symbols, one of them depicting the alleged temple, and another a six-pointed star, the Aqsa heritage foundation in Jerusalem said in a press release Wednesday.

Israel’s intent is to sabotage Islamic and Arab monuments, the Aqsa foundation stressed. “Israel has no right to effect these monuments or to make changes to these historical walls.”

The Aqsa foundation received phone calls ahead of meetings it held with witnesses from the Sahira Gate area of Jerusalem’s Old City, including Salah Al Shawish and Jalal Hijazi, both of whom are familiar with the area’s history. Shawish and Hijazi told the foundation that Israel had recently Judaized a number of stones on the city’s wall, which was built and restored by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent during the early Ottoman state.

An Aqsa foundation media crew later found during a ground visit that a stone had been removed from the wall and replaced with an alleged temple etched inside in a section to the left of the Sahira Gate, known by Jew’s as Herod’s Gate. Several stones on the gate’s interior were also replaced with stones etched with six-pointed stars. A historic stone was removed above the interior arch of the gate, and another in the New Gate area.

Israel covered up the crime by alleging restoration, repairs, and maintenance on the wall, the Aqsa foundation said. The entity has been for the past few years been taking shots at Judaizing parts of the Old City’s wall in a project exposed by the Aqsa foundation more than three years back.

The Israelis have made similar changes to several sections of the city wall, including the Amud Gate, one of the wall’s most famous gates, the wall’s southwestern section, and the New Gate. Names of some the wall’s structures have also been Judaized in apparent attempts to change the wall’s history.