On 2 August, Israel detained Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, head of the Jerusalem Supreme Muslim Council and the imam of al-Aqsa Mosque.
The ostensible reason for his arrest was a sermon he gave the same day, mourning the murder of Ismail Haniyeh, assassinated in Tehran on 31 July.
Sabri has now been banned from entering the mosque compound, al-Haram al-Sharif, for six months and Israel is threatening to revoke his Jerusalem residency permit.
The cleric is only the most prominent person to have been barred from al-Aqsa – in Islam, the third holiest site in the world – since 7 October. After Israel launched its genocide in Gaza last October, Israeli police have repeatedly thwarted religious freedoms at al-Aqsa mosque, notably during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Meanwhile, led by extremist Israeli ministers like Itamar Ben-Gvir, the public security minister, a growing number of Israeli settlers have been allowed not only to enter the site, but to pray there, in direct contravention of the status quo agreement that is supposed to govern the area and which forbids non-Muslim prayer in the area. ….more
