Fake Cemetery in Jerusalem
Fake Cemetery in JerusalemHezki Ezra

The Jerusalem Municipality has thus far removed 300 false tombstones that were built in the course of the past few weeks at the Mamilla Muslim cemetery in central Jerusalem. The tombs were built by Muslim elements who took advantage of the fact that the Jerusalem Municipality's Health Department granted them a permit to clean up and fix existing tombstones. Instead of just cleaning graves, however, the Muslims hired workers to try and grab land from the adjoining Independence Park (Gan HaAtzmaut).

After the land-grab hoax was discovered by Arutz Sheva, the Jerusalem Municipality filed a complaint with the police and immediately put a stop to all work at the site. On Monday this week, a court rejected the Muslims' request for a temporary order against the Municipality and granted the Municipality permission to remove the fictitious new tombstones.

Each new tombstone is dismantled only after an expert from the Antiquities Authority inspects it and confirms that it is indeed a new tombstone.

The new tombstones had no graves or human remains beneath them. Plastic bottles, cigarette packs and irrigation pipes were found beneath some of them. Others were built atop a sewage pipe.