JERUSALEM: Israel has barred Palestinian scholar Sheikh Ekrima Sabri from travel abroad and from visiting the occupied West Bank.
It is yet another “unjust Israeli decision aimed at silencing Palestinians,” he told Arab News from his home in occupied East Jerusalem.
Israeli media reported that the order was served against the leading preacher at Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site, because of his participation in anti-Israel conferences.
Sabri said: “They’re referring to academic conferences that I regularly attend, and they claim that I’m making contact with activists, which is totally without merit.”
Sari Bashi, Human Rights Watch director in Israel and Palestine, told Arab News: “Administrative measures like travel bans lack judicial process, and whenever authorities avoid fair and transparent law-enforcement procedures, we should ask questions.”
Sabri said the travel restrictions will not sway him from speaking out and opposing the US decision to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“There’s a clear link between the US decision regarding Jerusalem and attempts to restrict various symbolic leaders of the Palestinian people,” he said.
Naser Abu Sharif, a guard at Al-Aqsa Mosque, told Arab News that the Israelis “can’t stand it that he (Sabri) travels abroad to speak the truth, and they’re even preventing him from communicating with his own people.”
Abu Sharif said: “What has happened to the religious freedom Israel promised after its occupation in 1967? The situation in Jerusalem, especially the Old City, is becoming extremely dangerous.”
He added: “We’re under siege in our own city, and we can only ask God to save us from the Israelis’ unjust practices.”
Ofer Zalzberg, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the travel ban seems to be part of Israel’s broader efforts to limit Palestinian advocacy by Islamic authorities.
The Israelis “are using administrative measures to restrict Islamic figures who are opposed to US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and who are vocal in their defense of Muslim interests at Al-Aqsa,” Zalzberg told Arab News.
Sabri, head of the Higher Islamic Council in Jerusalem, is the city’s former mufti, and has become a leading figure among Palestinians.
Israeli soldiers injured him during protests last summer against the placement of metal detectors at the entrances of Al-Aqsa.
