RAMALLAH, April 6, 2017 (WAFA) – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on Thursday upon the international community to take immediate action against what it described as Israel’s ongoing Judaization of Jerusalem.

The ministry condemned a recent tender by the so-called Western Wall Heritage Fund for restoration of the infrastructure of the Beit Halifah building in Al-Buraq Wall Square in Jerusalem.

The ministry also condemned the plan of the Jerusalem Municipality and the Jerusalem Development Authority to build a pedestrian bridge south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque to connect Abu Thur neighborhood and Mount Zion.

“The Israeli government, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, continues to escalate its Judaization of occupied East Jerusalem and separating it from its Palestinian surroundings by changing its geographical, cultural and historical features,” the ministry said in a statement. “This aims at obliterating and falsifying the Palestinian Arab identity [of Jerusalem] and enforcing various kinds of oppression and coercion against its indigenous inhabitants to force them to leave the city.”

The Ministry stressed that occupied East Jerusalem is an integral part of the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967 and that all settlement activities are illegal and contrary to international law.

The ministry called on the international community, particularly the UNESCO, to force Israel to stop its attempts to Judaize Jerusalem and to halt all other forms of settlement activities.

M.N