Palestine to hoist flag on al-Aqsa mosque: Abbas

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the Palestinians will hoist their flag on the al-Aqsa mosque and the Holy Sepulcher Church in east Jerusalem Thursday, just as it was raised on the UN headquarters.

Abbas demanded that Israel stay away from Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, expressing his support for Palestinians "defending the al-Aqsa mosque, struggling to protect it."

Abbas told Israelis that Palestinians will maintain their hands extended in peace despite their hardships with Israel, adding that if peace is achieved in Palestine, it would involve "the world."

"We don't attack anybody but we don't want them (Israelis) to attack us. We also want them not to enter the holy al-Aqsa mosque," Abbas said.

Abbas reiterated his demand for Israel to abide by signed agreements. "In the UN we said it: Israel needs to stick to its commitments and we will stick to ours. However, if they do not, then they are responsible for the ensuing chaos."

He explained that Palestinians still hold on to their homeland and its prosperity and won't leave it, irrespective of the current unrest.

Abbas invited businessmen to invest in Palestinian businesses and not be deterred by "settler attacks." "They (settlers) are attempting to foil the Palestinian national project while we aim to build it," he said.

Tensions are escalating between Israel's army and settlers on one hand and Palestinians on the other, following the shooting ambush which killed an Israeli couple in the West Bank city of Nablus Thursday. Two other Israelis were stabbed to death in east Jerusalem.

In retaliation, the Israeli army killed six Palestinians, saying three of them were shot for stabbing Israelis. The rest three, including a 13-year-old teenager, were killed during ongoing clashes in different West Bank cities which left over 600 casualties.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian official stressed Thursday that regional peace, security and stability can only be achieved through the end of the Israeli occupation.

Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Executive Committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), called upon the international community to pressure the Israeli government to implement decisions of international legitimacy ensuring the establishment of the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital.

Erekat said that the Israeli government is fully responsible for the outcomes of the "attacks taking place in Palestinian territories, particularly attempts to impose a physical separator of the al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, as well as house demolitions, collective punishments, ethnic cleansing and closures in the West Bank and Gaza Strip."

In turn, the office of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prevented ministers and parliament members, including Arabs, from entering the al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, reported the public Israeli radio.

The radio said that Netanyahu recently barred a number of public figures from the site which has been witnessing intense clashes for three weeks.

Israeli forces have raided the Islamic holy site to crackdown on Palestinian worshipers who protested the permitting of entry to Jewish groups into the compound for prayers during the Jewish holidays, opposing the status-quo.

Palestinians want to declare east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state while Israel insists that the holy city is the state's "indivisible" capital.

The international community doesn't recognize Israel's declaration of Jerusalem as its capital in 1950, since it contradicts with the UN's Security Council resolution passed in 1947, known as the partition plan.

The international rejection increased further following Israel's occupation and annexation of east Jerusalem in the 1967 war. Endit