From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Ben Gvir urges demolition of Haifa-area grave of Izzedine al-Qassam, namesake of Hamas military wing
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calls on Nesher Mayor Roy Levi to “issue a demolition order tomorrow morning” for the grave of notorious Muslim extremist Izzedine al-Qassam, the namesake of Hamas’s military wing, who is buried in the Haifa-area town.
Addressing a discussion in the Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment Committee on the possibility of moving the grave, Ben Gvir declares that the police will secure and protect such efforts because Israel needs to send a “very clear message” that arch-terrorists, “even in death, will not be tolerated.”
Born in Syria, Qassam was a Muslim extremist who fought against French colonialism in Syria and later against the British rulers of Mandatory Palestine as well as Zionist settlers. He orchestrated many murders of Jews in Palestine during the 1930s. Hamas’s military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, is named after him, as are the crude Qassam rockets that have been fired from Gaza into Israeli population centers in the south of the country.
The Times of Israel Community.