Settler and masked soldier allegedly break into Hebron mosque, disrupt call to prayer
A masked soldier and a settler allegedly broke into a mosque early Friday in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, where they hung up Israeli flags, disrupted the Muslim call to prayer and played Hebrew music through the loudspeakers, Palestinian officials said.
Tawfik Jaabri, the muezzin — the mosque official who performs the call for prayer — told Palestinian media that he opened the Al-Ras Mosque before dawn on Friday, as usual, to summon worshippers for the early prayer.
“Suddenly, a masked soldier and a settler entered the mosque,” he was quoted by the Ma’an news agency as saying. “The soldier threatened me directly, using his weapon to stop me from moving, while the settler used the mosque’s external loudspeakers and played loud Hebrew songs from his phone.”
“The soldier and settler retreated from the mosque after a while, and when I exited, I was surprised to see they had put up Israeli flags on the walls and doors of the mosque,” he said.
As a result of the attack, Jaabri was unable to perform the call for the early prayer, he said, according to Ma’an.
A video clip included in the Hamas-linked Quds News Network’s report on the incident indicated the attackers played Israel’s national anthem, Hatikva, through the mosque loudspeakers. Another shot in the........
