Head of Hamas Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh phoned on Sunday evening Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, Imam of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, after Israeli occupation forces stormed his home and detained him for six hours. 

Haniyeh denounced the questioning of Sabri by the Israeli occupation intelligence services as an “assault on one of the leading figures and scholars in Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.” 

The Hamas chief voiced his full solidarity with Sabri, as well as all Jerusalemite scholars and defenders of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, stressing that all Palestinians are backing them in their struggle to defend Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa compound and its Islamic identity and sanctity.   

Haniyeh briefed Sabri on the latest talks between Hamas and Egypt on Jerusalem, adding: “We demanded an Egyptian intervention to stop this desecration [of the Al-Aqsa Mosque].”