Last week, heavy machinery arrived to carry out excavation work in the Muslim cemetery in Haifa, but activists who were called to the area managed to reach an understanding with the workers and the contractor, and prevent the attempt to damage the cemetery. The event spurred a protest, and on Friday a demonstration was held at the venue, despite intimidation from Israeli security services.
The story of this recent threat began on Monday, February 7, when the threat to the Muslim cemetery in Balad a-Sheikh in Haifa suddenly became very tangible: some heavy machinery for earthwork arrived at the edge of the cemetery, and their operators began preparations to dig.
In early December 2021, when a protest tent was set up on the outskirts of the cemetery, the situation was not clear. Some of the land was expropriated as early as the 1950s, and even though almost 70 years have passed since then, the cemetery continues to exist on the ground. When I reported here on the struggle for recognition of the cemetery, I
— source mondoweiss.net | Yoav Haifawi | Feb 16, 2022