The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) in Occupied Jerusalem on Monday took hold of a vast tract of the historical Islamic cemetery of Yusufiya which is adjacent to the eastern wall of the Aqsa Mosque and installed barbed wire around it.
Local sources reported seeing bulldozers and other heavy vehicles inside the cemetery as a prelude to carrying out diggings.
The IOA has prevented the native population of Jerusalem especially those living in the nearby neighborhood of Silwan from burying their dead in some areas of the cemetery which were annexed at the pretext of building an urban park.
Yusufiya cemetery is one of the oldest Islamic graveyards in Occupied Jerusalem and several companions of Prophet Muhammad and prominent religious figures were buried there.
