Israeli prosecutors filed an indictment in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday against the former Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, for inciting terror in remarks praising terrorists.
Sabri, the former Palestinian Authority-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, was indicted for glorifying Palestinian terrorists Udai Tamimi and Raad Hazam in 2022.
Tamimi, who killed a soldier in October 2022, was later killed when he opened fire on security guards in Maale Adumim. While paying a condolence visit to the Tamimi family, Sabri called on Palestinian youth to join the “family of martyrs,” which he said was “sublime and divine, and to be aspired to.”
Hazam killed three Israelis and injured another six when he opened fire on a crowded restaurant in downtown Tel Aviv in April 2022. He was killed in a shootout after an all-night manhunt, during which residents were instructed to lock their doors and keep away from windows and balconies.
Visiting the Hazam family’s mourning tent in Jenin, Sabri said, “We are also proud of the position of our brother Abu Raad, may God protect him and protect him and his steadfast positions, and we ask for mercy on the martyrs. They are the torch that shows the way.”
Appointed by Yasser Arafat, Sabri served as Mufti of Jerusalem from 1994-2006.
He currently heads the Jerusalem Supreme Muslim Council and signed a fatwa, or religious edict, prohibiting Muslims from participating in Jerusalem municipal elections.
The 85-year-old Sabri has previously denied the existence of the First and Second Jewish Temples on the Temple Mount. He also described the Holocaust death toll of six million Jews “a fairytale.” He has been arrested numerous times and banned from the Temple Mount for his incendiary sermons.
In May 2023, The Press Service of Israel reported that Sabri is also working with an extremist Turkish aid agency to undermine Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. In eastern Jerusalem, he is sometimes referred to as “the real Turkish ambassador in the city.”