Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: Jamal Awad/Flash90
Former Palestinian Authority Mufti Ekrima Sabri at his home in Jerusalem, Feb. 22, 2024
(JNS) — Former Palestinian Authority Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Ekrima Sabri, 85, is barred from the Temple Mount for six months after lauding Hamas terrorist leader Ismail Haniyeh in a sermon on Aug. 2, Israeli police said on Thursday.
“We eulogize the martyr Ismail Haniyeh and we ask for mercy and heaven for him,” said Sabri in a sermon delivered at Al-Aqsa mosque. Haniyeh was killed on July 31 in an explosion in Tehran.
Some participants at the sermon began to chant, “By spirit, by blood, you have been redeemed, O martyr.”
“This is not the first time that the same preacher has been investigated by the police on suspicion of incitement,” the police said in a statement.
Interior Minister Moshe Arbel sent a letter to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara requesting that Sabri’s residency rights in Jerusalem be revoked.
“For many years, Sabri has been inciting against the state, encouraging antisemitism and terrorism, and committing serious security offenses,” the minister wrote.
Sabri has for years published antisemitic literature, served as a senior member of an organization that transfers donations to Hamas, supported suicide attacks and praised murderers of Israelis, Arbel said.
Sabri was indicted in February 2023 on two incidents of incitement following a High Court of Justice petition by the Zionist Lavi Organization.
“It can’t be that an Israeli resident who blatantly encourages terrorism and murder is not immediately brought in for questioning,” attorneys representing the Lavi Organization told the court.
Israeli investigative journalist Nadav Shragai said Sabri is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the outlawed Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel.
Israeli authorities announced in December 2023 that they would demolish Sabri’s home in Jerusalem.
In May 2022, Religious Zionism Party head Bezalel Smotrich (he is now also finance minister) called for a criminal investigation of Sabri over his participation in a virtual conference hosted by Iran.
The conference was also attended by the leaders of various terrorist organizations, including Haniyeh, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Ziyad al-Nakhala and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Talal Naji.
Police said that since Oct. 7, 140 indictments for incitement have been issued, including to “preachers in mosques, who were investigated and charged after using their sermons to voice incitement and support for terrorism and terrorists.”
