JERUSALEM, Thursday, June 4, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli police today handed the head of the Higher Islamic Council and former Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, an order banning him from entering the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem for four months.

Sabri told WAFA that the police came to his house in East Jerusalem and handed him the order, which he described as arbitrary and illegal.

“There is no state in the world that uses expulsion except this occupation state that wants to silence and muzzle us so as not to object to its belligerent schemes,” he said.

Police yesterday dispersed a protest outside Sabri’s house in East Jerusalem against Israeli harassment of the Muslim clergy after holding and interrogating him for several hours days before and ordering him off the Mosque compound for one week before renewing the order to make it four months.

Sabri often delivers the Friday prayer sermon at Al-Aqsa Mosque to tens of thousands of worshippers, which seems to agitate the Israelis.

M.K.