A team of Israeli municipality workers escorted by police officers began to bulldoze Al-Yusufiya Muslim Cemetery a few metres away from the Noble Sanctuary of Al-Aqsa in October, sweeping away human remains and scattering bones in the process. Palestinian Jerusalemites rushed to the cemetery to defend the gravestones of their loved ones in response to the Israeli move.
Named after the prominent Muslim figure Al-Nasir Salah Al-Din Yusuf, better known as Saladin, Al-Yusufiya Cemetery was established centuries ago as a burial site for Muslims. It is one of the Islamic landmarks in occupied East Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the Israeli municipality plans to establish a group of theme parks known as the “Bible Trail” that are also going to engulf Palestinian residential areas in the neighbourhoods around Silwan in East Jerusalem.
Among those who protested at the destruction of the Muslim graves was Palestinian Jerusalemite Ola Nababteh, Um Alaa. She was recorded sobbing and clinging to her son’s grave. “Over my dead body,” she told Reuters. “My son’s body will not be removed from here.”
At least twenty Jordanian soldiers were buried in Al-Yusufiya after the 1967 Six Day War. In 2014, Israel banned Palestinians from being buried in the cemetery and levelled part
— source middleeastmonitor.com | Mahmoud Usruf | Dec 2, 2021