Israeli Arabs, Gazans protest against anti-Azan bill

JERUSALEM: Hundreds of Muslims in Israel and the Gaza Strip demonstrated on Friday against a bill to limit the volume of Azan (calls to prayer at mosques) in the state occupied by Jews.

In the southern city of Rahat, 100 Israeli Arabs held a rally against the bill, while more than 500 people took part in various demonstrations in the north, police said.

In the northern city of Jisr a-Zarqa, lawmaker Ahmed Tibi of the Arab Joint List called the legislation “a provocation and act of coercion in the place of dialogue and tolerance”, a party spokesperson said.

In Gaza, hundreds of supporters of the Islamist Hamas group that controls the Palestinian territory held a protest march through the Jabalia refugee camp near the enclave’s northern border.

Yusef al-Sharafi, a Hamas leader, told the crowd that “this unprecedented Zionist decision is an encroachment on the freedom of Muslims”.

“Attempts to ban the Azan (call to prayer) are doomed to fail because of the steadfastness of the Palestinians,” he said, reiterating the long-standing Hamas demand that the Palestinian Authority end its security cooperation with Israel.

 

The bill, which passed the ministerial committee for legislation on Sunday, had been appealed by Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, who demanded another discussion on it before its first parliamentary reading.

VIDEO: HOW AN ARAB LAWMAKER SILENCED ISRAEL PARLIAMENT BY RECITING WORDS OF ADHAN!

Litzman, a member of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, was concerned that the bill could also outlaw the weekly sirens that indicate the beginning of the Sabbath.

The bill, drafted by Moti Yogev and supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will now be put on hold until a ministerial committee holds a second vote.

The draft law would also apply to east Jerusalem, occupied in 1967 and later annexed by the illegal state of Israel and where more than 300,000 Palestinians live.