By Kaamil Ahmed
JERUSALEM (AA) – Israeli prison authorities have decided to release Palestinian leader Sheikh Raed Salah in the coming week, according to a lawyer for Salah.
The leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, which represents Palestinians inside Israel, Salah was imprisoned last May for “inciting violence”.
He is now expected to be released by Jan. 17, lawyer Omar Khamayseh told Anadolu Agency.
According to a police statement issued Thursday, investigations into suspected “illegal activity” by Salah and his Islamic Movement have ended and their findings passed on to Israeli prosecutors.
Israel banned the Islamic Movement’s northern branch in 2015, accusing it of “inciting violence” against Israelis amid heightened tension over Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The Islamic Movement came under scrutiny due to its vocal opposition to hardline Jewish visitors to Al-Aqsa who the group says are trying to seize control of the site, which is considered holy by both Muslims and Jews.
Tensions boiled over in late 2015 when a ban on young Muslims entering the mosque — and an exponential increase in the number of Jewish visitors to the site — led to clashes inside the mosque compound.
Salah was born in 1958 in the city of Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel. He later studied Islamic Law at Hebron University in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
He served as mayor of Umm al-Fahm for three consecutive terms from 1987 to 2001. He has been the leader of the Islamic Movement’s northern branch since 1996.
