Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry (Front) attends Arab Foreign Ministers' urgent meeting in Cairo, Egypt, on July 27, 2017. Arab Foreign Ministers strongly condemned on Thursday Israel's measures in East Jerusalem, stressing that the recent Israeli procedures are illegal. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)
CAIRO, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Arab Foreign Ministers strongly condemned on Thursday Israel's measures in East Jerusalem, stressing that the recent Israeli procedures are illegal.
The ministers urged the United Nations Security Council to shoulder responsibility to maintain peace and security and implement its resolutions relating Jerusalem as well as obliging Israel to stop its policies and violations in East Jerusalem.
Arab Foreign Ministers held an urgent meeting in Cairo to probe the recent Israeli violations and procedures in East Jerusalem.
The ministers also called on all countries to implement the resolutions of the United Nations and the UNESCO Executive Board on the Palestinian issue, including the Word Heritage Committee of UNESCO which affirmed that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is an Islamic site dedicated to worship and an integral part of the World Heritage Sites.
Since July 14 attack at the vicinity of the mosque, where three armed Israeli Arabs and two Israeli policemen were killed, Palestinian worshippers had been performing their five-time daily prayers at the gates outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Muslims' third holiest site.
In response, Israel closed the gates that lead to the mosque for three days and then decided to install electronic gates and cameras at the gates of the mosque, a move that was rejected by Palestinians who refused to enter the mosque under the new Israeli security measures.
In the clashes that ensued, at least four Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces and hundreds of others were injured, while three members of an Israeli family in a West Bank settlement were killed by an assailant who said he did it "to redeem Al-Aqsa."
On Thursday, the Israeli police announced that all the security facilities installed recently at the Al-Aqsa Mosque were removed and the situation is back to normal, while Islamic leaders in the city allowed worshippers to go inside the mosque without any of the Israeli security measures.
However, Palestinian medical sources said that dozens of Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli police near East Jerusalem's flashpoint shrine shortly after prayers at the site resumed.
Meanwhile, the Arab Foreign Ministers urged the U.S. Administration to continue efforts to restore security and end the current tension on the basis of protecting the holy sites and respecting the historical and legal status of East Jerusalem.
They also warned that the unprecedented Israeli escalation in East Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa endangered regional and global peace.
The Arab League repeatedly condemned the Israeli practices at Al-Aqsa Mosque as a blatant breach of the right of worship and violation of relevant international laws and UN resolutions.
The recent Israeli measures added tension to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that has lasted for decades, since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the Western-backed creation of Israel in 1948.
Israel is blamed by the international community for the deadlock of the peace process because of its settlement expansion policy, which is rejected even by the United States, its strongest ally.
The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital in the light of the UN-proposed two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders.
