Jewish Celebration Forces Palestinians To Hide at Home

May 25, 2024 Hour: 2:37 pm

The main event of the Jewish holiday of “LAG B’Omer”, which starts this Saturday afternoon, will be held this year in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in occupied East Jerusalem, and not on Mount Meron (in northern Israel), as has traditionally been done, which has forced thousands of Palestinians to lock themselves inside their homes.

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The authorities have announced that the change is due to the constant exchange of fire between the Israeli army and the Lebanese Shiite armed resistance group Hezbollah, which intensified after the military escalation of the Israeli army over the war in Gaza on 7 October.

“The decision to hold the main event in the heart of a Palestinian residential neighborhood takes advantage of the situation and drags more populations that are not involved in Palestinian dispossession into the heart of the conflict,” said in X the Mistaclim Israeli organization, which struggle against the occupation.

Because of the war in the north, the events of “LAG B’Omer” holiday were moved from Mount Maron in the north, to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
The decision to hold the main event in the heart of a Palestinian residential neighborhood takes advantage of the… pic.twitter.com/2m4oJpYRbR

— מסתכלים לכיבוש בעיניים (@Mistaclim)
May 25, 2024

Mistaclim also pointed that due the desition, the neghborhhood will be closed, and the residents will be forced to hide in their houses which would cause the Israeli military to have more “unnecessary work.”

“Like the conduct in the rest of country, the intention of is clear – the various sectors of the coalition each in turn promote the interests of their voters while risking the security of the country,” said the anti-occupation organization.

The Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem is one of the most important urban centres for the Palestinian population. In recent years, Israeli courts had approved numerous evictions of Arab families in favour of Jewish settlers.

In the rest of the country, the ultra-orthodox Jews commemorate this date by burning hundreds of tons of combustible material in gigantic bonfires that represent the light that supposedly Rabbi Bar Yojái introduced into the world through his teachings collected in the “Book of the Zohar”.