 | Sheikh Raed Salah is an outspoken cleric from Israel's Arab minority (File) |
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Agencies) Raed Salah, an outspoken cleric from Israel's 20-percent Arab minority, was convicted of disorderly conduct and assault after scuffles with police who confronted protesters during engineering work near Islam's third holiest site.
Palestinians complained excavations at the site threatened the foundations of al-Aqsa. Israel said the work was intended to shore up the structures against natural erosion.
Israel captured Jerusalem's Old City and the rest of Arab East Jerusalem from Jordanian control in 1967. Since then, many Muslims have voiced fears, despite Israeli denials, that Jews may seek to take over the al-Aqsa compound, an area Jews revere as the site of their destroyed Biblical temples.
Clashes around al-Aqsa three months ago, during which Saleh was also detained, were the latest of many over the site, which remains at the heart of particularly thorny disputes between Israel and the Palestinians over control of Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court sentenced Salah to nine months in jail for the 2007 incident, to begin next month. He received an additional suspended sentence of six months.
Salah's lawyer said he would consider an appeal.
"The Israeli state, which is occupying al-Aqsa, is trying to distract from its real crime and to satisfy the mood in Israel by convicting the honorable Sheikh Salah," attorney Khaled Zabarqa told Reuters.
Salah previously served a two-year jail sentence after being convicted of sending money to needy Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Zabarqa said. Israeli prosecutors said some of the money was to be used by anti-Israel armed groups. alarabiya
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