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Several days before the
events of the massacre began, the "Temple Trustees" group
distributed a statement
to the media on the occasion of a religious festival of theirs which
they call "the Throne
Festival". In the statement the organization announced that it
intended
to stage a march to the
Temple Mount (or so they call it). The statement called upon Jew
to participate in this
march since, according to the statement, it would involve the
decisive
act of placing the
foundation stone for what is called "the Third Temple." In
addition, the
founder of the
organization, Ghershoun Salmoun, announced that "the Arab-Islamic
occupation of the temple
area must come to an end, and the Jews must renew their
profound ties to the
sacred area." The march, in which 200,000 Jews took part, headed
toward al-Aqsa Mosque in
order for "the foundation stone" of the so-called "Third Temple"
to be put in place.
On Monday, October 8,
1990 at 10:00 A.M., half-hour before the beginning of the
massacre, Israeli
occupation forces began placing military barriers along various
roads
leading to Jerusalem in
order to prevent Palestinians from getting to the city. They also
closed the doors of the
mosque itself and forbid Jerusalem residents to go in. However,
thousands had already
gathered inside the mosque before this time in response to calls
from the imam of the
mosque and the Islamic movement to protect the mosque and to
prevent the "Temple
Trustees" from storming it.
When the Muslim
worshippers began resisting the Israeli group to prevent them from
placing the"foundation
stone" for their so-called temple, Israeli occupation forces began
carrying out the
massacre,using all the weapons such as poison gas bombs, automatic
weapons, military
helicopters, etc. The soldiers and Jewish settlers where firing live
ammunition in the form
of a continuous spray of machine-gun fire. The result was that
thousands of Palestinian
worshippers of various ages found themselves in a mass
death trap. Twenty-three
Palestinians were killed, and 850 others were wounded to
varying degrees. The
Israeli soldiers began firing at 10:30 A.M. and stopped 35 minutes
later.
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