Israel Investigates Imam at Al-Aqsa Mosque Over Haniyeh Mourning
Israeli police are investigating comments made Friday by the imam at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem mourning top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during prayers Friday.
Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran earlier this week in an attack that Iran pinned on Israel.
On Friday, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, the former mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories, said, “the people of Jerusalem and the environs of Jerusalem from the pulpit of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque mourn the martyr Ismail Haniyeh.
We ask God Almighty to have mercy on him and to grant him a place in His spacious gardens.” Sabri also led a funeral prayer in absentia for Haniyeh.
Following the sermon, Israeli police said that they were probing whether the statement constituted incitement.
They pledged to “act based on the findings.” Since the start of the war, Palestinians have been arrested, fired by Israeli employers and expelled from Israeli schools for online speech deemed incendiary by Israeli authorities, rights groups say.
Roughly 30,000 attended prayers Friday, according to the Waqf, the Jordanian-based Muslim religious body that takes care of the Al-Aqsa site. Police banned hundreds of young men from entering the sensitive compound ahead of prayers, a common practice since Oct. 7.
