Israeli forces arrest Al-Aqsa preacher after he mourned Hamas chief
Israeli occupation forces have arrested Al-Aqsa Mosque preacher Sheikh Ekrima Sabri after he delivered his sermon, mourning Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated during his visit to Tehran on Wednesday.
Accompanied by other Axis of Resistance leaders, Haniyeh attended the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on Tuesday.
Footage released on social media shows Israeli police and soldiers surrounding Sheikh Sabri in front of his house in the east-occupied Al-Quds and leading him to a police vehicle leaning on his cane.
Earlier on Friday, he led a funeral prayer in absentia for Haniyeh and said the Palestinians across Al-Quds are mourning the resistance leader's martyrdom.
“We ask God Almighty to have mercy on him and place him in His spacious gardens with the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs, and the righteous. What excellent companions they are,” Sheikh Sabri said during his sermon.
Following the sermon, the Israeli police said they were probing whether his remarks constituted “incitement” and that they would act accordingly.
Following his sermon, Israel's far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for an immediate investigation.
According to reports, the Israeli hardliners have urged the authorities to revoke Sheikh Sabri's identity card and cancel his residency permit in the occupied city.
The 85-year-old preacher has been detained multiple times recently and over the years, where he was investigated, and banned from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings for months.
He was also abducted and released under the condition that he would not communicate with the pro-resistance news channels Al-Manar, Al-Aqsa TV, and Al-Mayadeen.
Sabri is a staunch critic of the decades-long Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. He previously served as the mufti of al-Quds and the Palestinian territories from 1994 to 2006.
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