The legal adviser of the Waqf Department in Occupied Jerusalem complained last week to Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat about the municipality’s hostile attitude toward its Islamic property over the past year according to Haaretz Hebrew newspaper.
In a letter Jamal Abu Toameh said that the municipality has been increasingly aggressive toward the Waqf which is an official agent of the Jordanian Waqf.
“This continued harassment is disastrous dangerous and involves unnecessary unwanted conflicts that have no logic or purpose” Toameh wrote adding that if the municipality did not change its ways it could lead to confrontations.
The first complaint was about a “gardening order” issued eight months ago for Waqf-owned land in Emek Tzurim Park at the foot of the Mount of Olives.
The second complaint was related to a stop-work order and a sealing of a large building purchased by the Waqf adjacent to the al-Aqsa Mosque wall in the Old City’s Muslim Quarter.
The Waqf which sought to convert the building into a public restroom for visitors to Al-Aqsa Mosque argued that all of the work was done in the interior of the structure and did not require a special permit.
The third complaint was about the plan to move a garbage-compacting facility to the Wadi al-Joze neighborhood also on Waqf property.
