Amman, Asharq Al-Awsat – Zaki Bani Irshayd, the secretary general of the Islamic Action Front [IAF], the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement in Jordan, has said that the actions of the Lebanese Hezbollah group were “a national, legitimate, and pan-Arab duty and an attempt to bolster the Islamic resistance in the Gaza Strip”. The Egyptian authorities have recently apprehended a Lebanese Hezbollah cell that confessed of smuggling weapons and explosives.

In a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, Bani Irshayd added: “This action is not an aggression on Egyptian national sovereignty. Egyptian national security is part of pan-Arab security and it is everyone’s duty to rise to the defense of pan-Arab security”. He pointed out, “The Egyptian authorities should have helped the resistance in its defense of the honor of the Arab and Islamic nation”. Bani Irsayd went on to wonder, “Where was Egyptian sovereignty when the tunnels in the Egyptian city of Rafah were bombed and when Egyptian sovereignty was violated by spies when (the Israeli) Azzam Azzam was arrested [in 1996]?” Bani Irshayd called for the release of the members of the cell. He said that they should not be put on trial. Those that should be put on trial, he added, are the members of the Zionist entity for the crimes they have committed against the sons of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in Palestinian towns. He called for ending the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, backing the resistance, and facilitating the movement of citizens at the Rafah crossing point in view of the violations that are being practiced against the occupied city of Jerusalem and the Judaization of the city by settlers.

Hundreds of IAF leaders and members in Jordan as well as citizens staged a sit-in in front of the party’s headquarters in the center of the capital Amman to protest the attempts of Jewish extremists to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque and hold Jewish rites within it. During the sit-in – in which a number of deputies, unionists, and leaders of other parties participated – the demonstrators carried posters and chanted slogans denouncing the Israeli occupation, its persecution of the Palestinian people, its repeated attempts to desecrate the grounds and walls of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and its targeting of the sons of Jerusalem that are standing fast to protect it while Israel is trying to empty the city of its residents as part of its plans to Judaize it. In a speech, Hammam Said, the General guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement in Jordan, said that no one can remain silent to what is being done to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. He said that it is a crime that requires rising to defend it against the extremist Jews that have not stopped eroding its foundations. He said that 3,000 Palestinians from inside the walls of Jerusalem and over 50 years of age that were allowed to enter the mosque. He said there are thousands of Palestinian youths outside the environs of Jerusalem that are ready to defend Al-Aqsa and repulse the extremists.