After Haniyeh's obituary, Israel prevents Ikrima Sabri from entering Al-Aqsa for 6 months

On Thursday, the Israeli police issued a decision preventing Al-Aqsa preacher Sheikh Ikrimah Sabri (85 years old) from entering the mosque for a period of six months.

Khaled Zabarqa, Sheikh Sabri’s lawyer, said in a statement, a copy of which was received by Anadolu: “The Israeli police issued a decision to prevent His Eminence Sheikh Ikrima Sabri from entering the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque for a period of six months.”

As of 10:00 GMT, no statement had been issued by the Israeli police in this regard.

On Friday, the police arrested Sheikh Sabri for several hours. After he mourned in the Friday sermon at Al-Aqsa the head of the Political Bureau of the Hamas movement, Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated at the end of last July.

Iran and Hamas accused Tel Aviv of assassinating Haniyeh, and while the latter remained silent, its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at his country's responsibility for bombing Haniyeh's residence during a visit to Tehran.

The Israeli extreme right is launching a campaign of incitement against Sheikh Sabri, calling for his imprisonment and expulsion from occupied Jerusalem.

The Palestinians say that Israel is intensifying its measures to Judaize East Jerusalem, including Al-Aqsa Mosque, and to erase its Arab and Islamic identity.

They cling to East Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for state, based on international legitimacy resolutions, which do not recognize Israel’s occupation of the city in 1967 nor its annexation in 1981.

Israel's new move against Sheikh Sabri comes at a time when it has been waging a war on the Gaza Strip for more than 10 months. It left more than 131,000 people dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing.

Anatolia