OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities have banned Jerusalem’s top Muslim cleric from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for six months over a recent sermon, his attorney told AFP on Wednesday.

Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, will be prevented from entering the holy site in the Israeli-annexed Old City until January 2026, according to lawyer Khaldoun Najem.

Najem said Israeli police “did not interrogate” or held a hearing for the mufti prior to their decision.

Contacted by AFP, police did not immediately comment. Hussein’s lawyer said that the ban was due to a Friday sermon the mufti gave at Al-Aqsa — Islam’s third-holiest site and a Palestinian national symbol — in late July, “which contained nothing inappropriate”.—AFP