Palestinian imam who condemned Al-Aqsa stormings hands himself in for Israel jail sentence

A Palestinian imam convicted of attacking an Israeli man in 2018 turned himself in Monday to serve a 16-month prison sentence at an Israeli jail.

Sheikh Yousef Al-Baz, from Lod, a town within Israel's 1948 boundaries that has a significant Palestinian population, was convicted of attacking an Israeli who blocked the entrance to his neighbourhood five years ago.

Al-Baz and the Israeli filed police complaints against each other; the Palestinian imam insists he was attacked first.

The town had seen violence between the town's Jewish and Palestinian populations during a brutal Israeli assault on Gaza and occupied Jerusalem in 2021. 

The 64-year-old, who is the imam of the Al-Omari Grand Mosque in Lod, spoke to The New Arab’s Arabic-language sister site on his way to a prison in the Negev (Naqab).

"This file is a continuation of the political pursuit that was years before that file, the political prosecutions pursued by Israel against any Palestinian activist who speaks about the Palestinian cause," he told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

Al-Baz was arrested in April 2022 for inciting "disturbance of order" after he condemned the Israeli settler stormings of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

He was placed under house arrest a few months later, in September.

In December 2022, an Israeli court reduced his sentence from 20 to 16 months and delayed the start of his jail sentence to 20 February.

Baz was a member of the Islamic Movement, part of which was banned by Israel in 2015.

Like other cities in Israel with a big Palestinian population, activists and rights groups say Lod has seen Israeli xtremists attempt to erase its Palestinian identity.