Imprisoned Islamist leader threatens hunger strike

The jailed head of the banned Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement announced Sunday night that he will begin a hunger strike in protest at his prison conditions.

Sheikh Raed Salah, 58, an Israeli citizen from the northern city of Umm al-Fahm, began serving a nine month sentence in May. He was sentenced last year for incitement to violence and racism over an inflammatory sermon he delivered in 2007 in Jerusalem. He has previously served terms for similar offenses.

Salah has been a key agitator on the Temple Mount, accusing Israel of seeking to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine at the holy site.

Salah is being held in the Ramon Prison in southern Israel. Prisons Service officials confirmed that Salah stated his intention to refuse food, but they say that so far he has not returned any of his meals uneaten, the Walla news site reported.

According to Palestinian media, Salah began his strike to protest being held in solitary confinement. He is barred from any contact with other inmates.

In February, Salah went on a symbolic hunger strike in solidarity with Mohammed al-Qiq, a Palestinian prisoner being held by Israel under administrative detention. At the time, Salah told Al-Jazeera that former Knesset member Mohammad Barakeh was joining him in his protest.

In April, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Salah of stirring up trouble on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem ahead of the Jewish holiday of Passover that fell at the end of the month, and called for him to be jailed.

In the 2007 sermon that landed him in prison for incitement to terrorism, Salah expressed the hope that “the streets of Jerusalem be purified with the blood of the innocent, who shed it in order to separate from their souls the soldiers of the Israel occupation, also in the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque.” He added that “our finest moment will be when we meet Allah as martyrs in al-Aqsa.”

Israel formally banned the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement on November 17, 2015, charging that the group had links to terrorist groups and was instrumental in inciting a wave of violence over the past year which has seen dozens of stabbing and shooting attacks by Palestinians and some Israeli Arabs.

The North Branch rejects the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians and boycotts national elections on the grounds that they give legitimacy to the existence of the Jewish state.