Al-Aqsa imam eulogizes Haniyeh, is detained on suspicion of incitement, terror support
Interior minister says will revoke residency permit of Ekrima Sabri, a former grand mufti of Jerusalem with history of antisemitism, past accusations of terror incitement
Police detained Al-Aqsa preacher Sheikh Ekrima Sabri on suspicion of incitement and supporting terrorism after he delivered a eulogy for slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during Friday prayers.
In his sermon, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem mourned “the martyr” Haniyeh, saying: “We ask Allah to have mercy on him and place him in paradise.”
Footage on social media showed audience members chanting “Allah is great” and “with blood we shall redeem the martyr” during the imam’s sermon.
The police said it had begun investigating an “imam suspected of making inciting statements and supporting terrorism during a sermon given today at the midday prayer on the Temple Mount.”
Upon securing the state prosecutor’s approval for the probe, officers took Sabri from his East Jerusalem home for questioning at the Jerusalem District Central Investigations Unit, police said.
The statement added that another person was detained on the Temple Mount for “shouts of incitement” during the service.
Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s Doha-based political bureau, was killed in Tehran on Wednesday. Israel has not officially commented on the assassination of Haniyeh, but Iran, which hosted Haniyeh for the inauguration of its new president, has vowed to exact revenge on Israel.
Interior Minister Moshe Arbel wrote to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to inform her he would revoke Sabri’s permanent residency permit.
Sabri, 85, does not hold Israeli citizenship. He lives in East Jerusalem, most of whose Palestinian residents hold Israeli residency permits that are relatively easy for the interior minister to revoke.
“Sabri holds a permit to reside permanently in Israel, which for many years now has not stopped him from inciting against the state, promoting antisemitism and terrorism and committing serious security crimes,” wrote Arbel, accusing the sheikh of publishing antisemitic literature, serving as a conduit for Hamas funds, and supporting terrorist acts.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who is reportedly the focus of a probe for alleged incitement of violence against Gazans, and who has been convicted of incitement to racism in the past, had called for the probe into Sabri, drawing parallels between the accusations against the two of them.
“I hope the state prosecutor, who is seeking to investigate me for ‘incitement against the residents of Gaza,’ will act with the same resolve against a sheikh who incites for the murder of Jews on the Temple Mount,” wrote Ben Gvir on X, formerly Twitter, hours before the prosecutor approved the investigation into Sabri.
The police have investigated Sabri for incitement before.
In June, he was charged with inciting terrorism for comments he made that allegedly supported an attacker who shot at guards in the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, killing a soldier, in October 2022.
The imam was also accused of praising a terrorist who killed three Israelis and wounded six others in an April 2022 shooting in Tel Aviv.
Sabri was appointed mufti of Jerusalem by late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1994. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas removed him from the post in 2006. He currently heads Jerusalem’s Supreme Muslim Council.
In writings and interviews, Sabri has cast doubt on the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust and advocated studying the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic tract from the early 20th century.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound sits on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. The flashpoint site is considered the third holiest in Islam and the holiest in Judaism.
