Israel jails Islamic cleric for inciting Aqsa violence

An Israeli court on Tuesday ordered the jailing of a firebrand cleric whose Islamist group has been accused of inciting a wave of violence over Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

 Raed Salah, the head of the radical northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel, was found guilty on appeal of inciting violence at the holy site in a 2007 speech.

 However he has also been on the government's radar for stoking current tensions over the compound that has led to a wave of anti-Israeli knife attacks, shootings and violent protests.

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised last week to ban the Islamic Movement for "wild incitement" of the current attacks.

 During the speech in 2007, Salah urged "all Muslims and Arabs (to) start an intifada (uprising) to support holy Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa mosque."

 Salah was ordered to present himself to prison officers on November 15.

 The Al-Aqsa mosque compound is in a mostly Palestinian area that was annexed by Israel from Jordan in 1967 and is a powder-keg for tensions in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 Clashes erupted at the holy site in September as an increase in Jewish visitors to the site alarmed Palestinians who fear Israel is seeking to change rules which currently forbid Jews from praying at the compound.

 Salah's branch of the Islamic Movement has been accused of financing two Muslim groups, the female Murabitat and male Murabitun who act as self-appointed sentinels at Al-Aqsa, keeping an eye on Jewish visitors and harassing those they suspect of secretly praying.

 Both groups were outlawed from the site when tensions boiled over in September.