At 3:30 in the morning of Saturday, August 23, 1969 – just two days after the Israeli extremist “Dennis Michael Rohan” burned the tribal chapel in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem – a Palestinian group prepared 16 missiles directed at the Knesset, the Israeli occupation cabinet, and a hotel west of Jerusalem.

The fire had left extensive damage to the mosque, its annexes and its historical building, and destroyed the famous Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi pulpit in its entirety. Meanwhile, Israel deported the extremist “Rohan” to Australia, of which he holds her citizenship, under the pretext that he is a “loon”.

quality process

The Palestinian group, consisting of 16 people, using 20 tanks, planned a qualitative military operation to coincide with the start of the session of the Palestinian National Council in Cairo, which was scheduled for 28/8/1969. And that was through the introduction of “Katyusha 122” missiles smuggled from Jordan through the Dead Sea towards Palestine. But the surprise of the burning of Al-Aqsa accelerated the implementation of the operation.

During Al Jazeera Net’s search for the details of the military operation, we met Hajj Younis Jadoua Al-Asa (79 years old), who was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and spent 10 years of it, and then was deported to Jordan, until he returned to Palestine in 1994, after the Oslo Accords between the PLO. Palestinian Liberation and Israel.

In the details of the operation, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement “Fatah” – at that time – formed several groups to transport missiles and their equipment from Jordan to Beit Sahour, east of Bethlehem, which is approximately 14 kilometers from the target points in western Jerusalem.

The missiles, after being hidden on the outskirts of the Dead Sea (between Jordan and Palestine), were transported through animals, and the participating groups met at the place specified by two people who came from Jordan to carry out the mission.

Al-Asa told Al-Jazeera Net that his group was composed of the two martyrs, Ismail Jadoua Al-Asa, and Ahmed Hussein Al-Asa, in addition to other groups that preserved the names of their members for “confidentiality of information”, and the occupation demolished the homes of the three of them in the town of Al-Obeidiya, east of Bethlehem.

Bombardment and siege retaliation

The three other groups met at the agreed point near their town. At this moment, Hajj Younis laughed and said that one of the donkeys faced a stone chain and was loaded with the missile, so the martyr Ahmed Hussein had to carry that donkey, and crossed the stone obstacle, to be delivered at the specified time and place, to ensure the security of the area and to withdraw.

The members of the groups returned to their homes, and at 4:30 in the morning they heard 3 explosions, and they thought that there was a glitch in the firing of the rockets. Later, it turned out that 3 of them were fired at the targets and landed in the squares of the Knesset, the Israeli Cabinet and a hotel, but they did not leave any fatalities, as the Israeli occupation announced. later.

This attack, according to Younis Al-Asa, prompted then-Minister of the Occupation Army, Moshe Dayan, to impose a strict siege and a curfew on the eastern area of ​​Bethlehem for a month, threatening to starve the people if they did not help in reaching the guerrillas.

In the wake of the siege, a popular committee was formed to send aid to the besieged residents from the various Palestinian areas.

detainees and escapees

The Israeli occupation managed to reach an armed Palestinian group by chance two months later, until searches led him to one of the participants in the operation and arrested him. Then he discovered some members of the other groups, and a number of them managed to escape to Jordan, while others remained unidentified.

After more than 23 military court sessions, the occupation sentenced Hajj Younis Al-Assa to 20 years in prison on charges of carrying out and planning the operation and covering up those he described as criminals, while his colleague Ismail Jadoua spent 16 years in captivity, and Ahmed Hussein 13 years.

Jadoua and Hussein were martyred years after their release, as a result of the injuries and diseases that exhausted them inside Israeli prisons.

‘Painful response’

It was later discovered that Fatah had brought 28 rockets into Palestine, two of which were fired at a settlement in the southern West Bank, and 3 at the Knesset, the hotel, and the Israeli Prime Minister, in response to the burning of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, which Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said at the time. “She did not sleep that night; Because she was afraid that the Arabs would enter Israel in droves from everywhere, but when the sun rose the next day, she realized that “we can do anything we want.”

However, the Palestinian response was “painful,” as described by the Minister of the Occupation Army, “Moshe Dayan,” who arrived at the site of the rocket fire, and said that he would not allow “terrorists to stay around Jerusalem,” and threatened the tribes of the Al-Obeidiya, Ta’amrah and east Bethlehem areas with deportation to the east of the Jordan River, because “there are They know who the executors are and do not tell them.”

The Palestinian solidarity was great with the residents of the besieged area, and they received food and financial aid from everywhere in Palestine, in support of the perpetrators of the operation, which was the biggest response, at the time, to the burning of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The island