Threatening to "blow yourself up if evacuated from your home, proves the resolve of the Palestinian people and their holding onto our land"

Headline: “The Salhiyeh family in Sheikh Jarrah stands against the occupation: We will burn ourselves if they break into our home to evacuate it”

"'Either we will die or we will live in this home’ – these are the words of civilian Mahmoud Salhiyeh, which shook everyone who watched his video after he went up on the roof of his home carrying a number of gas balloons, in case the occupation soldiers would break in and evacuate him from his home (refers to attempted eviction of illegal Arab squatters from public land in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem on Jan. 17, 2022 -Ed.). He threatened to blow them up, and thus to endanger his life and the life of his family members…

[PA] Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Muhammad Hussein told [the official PA daily] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida: ‘The little that can be said about the occupation’s measures is that they are inhumane, arbitrary, and unfair measures whose goal is to cause an emigration [of Palestinians] and to commit ethnic cleansing… What is the crime of those who have been living in their home for many years that they must leave their home?’

He emphasized that what the family did, which endangered its life [when it threatened] to blow itself up if it is evacuated from its home, proves the resolve of the Palestinian people and their holding onto our land, [which stem] from their right to remain on their land.”

Muhammad Hussein also serves as Deputy Secretary-General and acting Secretary-General of the PLO Popular National Conference of Jerusalem.