Court rejects appeal against construction on Jaffa Muslim cemetery
Friday prayers next to an 18th century Muslim burial ground ahed of a protest against the decision to demolish it, Tel Aviv, 12 June 2020
Aaron Boxerman reports in The Times of Israel:
The Tel Aviv District Court on Tuesday rejected a petition by the Jaffa Islamic Council against the construction of a shelter for homeless people on a plot that was found to be an old Muslim cemetery.
The construction atop the cemetery sparked days of demonstrations in Jaffa, a predominantly Arab city that is part of the Tel Aviv municipality.
Judge Limor Bibi canceled a previous injunction against work at the site, which will continue immediately. She also ruled that the Islamic Council must pay the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality and the Tel Aviv Foundation NIS 7,500 each for legal costs.
The cemetery, known in Arabic as Maqbarat al-Isaaf, is one of Tel Aviv’s few Muslim burial sites. The graveyard had gone unnoticed for many years until the city decided to build a three-story homeless shelter on its grounds. When bulldozers demolished the structure that was atop the cemetery to make way for the shelter, the bones of at least 30 people were discovered to have been buried in the structure.
The Islamic Council began organizing residents to prevent the demolition, but the municipality rejected the claims that the site constituted a place of special significance to Jaffa’s Muslim community, noting that it had been abandoned for decades, if not centuries. The municipality also argued that the project would be conducted with sensitivity to the remains at the site, which will be moved only “the minimum necessary.”