PALESTINIAN SHEIKH ARRESTED FOR VENDALISING BANNER OF SOLEIMANI IN GAZA (VIDEOS)

Fri 01 January 2021:

The Palestinian group Hamas arrested on Thursday a man for tearing down a banner of slain Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani which was put up ahead of the first anniversary of his death by the group, according to a relative of the detainee.

Hamas security forces arrested Sheikh Majdi Al-Maghribi, who was at the front of the group that tore down the image, according to his family and those close to him.

Al-Maghribi wrote on Facebook: “Every hero can remove this shame from the land of Gaza. Let him blur, rip, and distort these images … A shame for this filth remaining above our heads.”

Hamas put up a large banner of Soleimani on the main coastal road in Gaza on Tuesday after a military drill, Reuters reported.

Several other banners of Soleimani were spotted across Gaza ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Iranian general’s death, according to Palestinian social media users. Arabs were quick to criticize the banners and Israeli officials condemned them as glorifying a “murderer.”

#Palestinian MAN ARRESTED FOR TORN DOWN BANNER OF #Soleimani IN #Gaza pic.twitter.com/q5i7lhRed2

— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) January 1, 2021

صورة ضخمة لقاسم سليماني في شوارع غزة.. سؤال للسادة في غرة: هل تتوقعون من الشارع العربي ان يتعاطف معكم ومع قضيتكم وهو يراكم تنصبون التماثيل لقتلة السوريين والعراقيين واليمنيين واللبنانيين؟ كيف تتحالفون مع من يحتل أربع عواصم عربية… https://t.co/7bp25HTNJV

— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) December 29, 2020

The same banner now appears to have been ripped apart by Gazans, according to a video shared by Palestinian social media users. A man filming the torn banner in Gaza can be heard describing Soleimani as the “killer of Syrians and Iraqis.”

بفضل الله، تمزيق آخر صور سليماني في غزة . pic.twitter.com/9wHXQWXyU8

— 🇵🇸🇸🇦 أحـمــد الأغــا (@alaghatv) December 31, 2020

The banner included text from a speech by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at Soleimani’s funeral in Tehran. “The martyr commander Qassem Soleimani who spent his life supporting the resistance… he is a martyr of al-Quds (Jerusalem),” the text reads.

Several other Soleimani banners have also been taken down and vandalised, images and videos shared by Palestinian social media users show.

بهذه الطريقة عبّر مواطنون في غزة عن رفضهم وغضبهم على رفع صور السفاح قاسم سليماني على لوحات اعلانية في القطاع. pic.twitter.com/F2uXCXrxX8

— أحمد أبوعبيدة #غزة (@ahmadsqps) December 30, 2020

Relations between Shia Iran and Sunni Hamas briefly deteriorated in the early years of the Syrian conflict after Hamas refused to support Iran’s ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against Sunni rebels.

Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force – the overseas arms of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – was killed in a US airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport on January 3.

More posters of Qassem #Soleimani being torn down in #Gaza. pic.twitter.com/KDZ2WQL2Qk

— SAMRIReports2 (@SReports2) December 31, 2020

تعبيراً عن الرفض والغضب.. إزالة وتمزيق صورة قاسم سليماني من أحد اللافتات في غزة قبل قليل.. pic.twitter.com/YutP4XsiO0

— أحمد أبوعبيدة #غزة (@ahmadsqps) December 30, 2020

A senior Hamas official said Sunday the group received $22 million in cash from Soleimani during a visit to Tehran in 2006, drawing criticism from Iranians who accuse the regime of prioritizing its network of proxy groups over its citizens.

Iranian demonstrators have voiced their opposition to Tehran’s foreign policies and accused the regime of squandering the country’s resources on foreign militias in three separate waves of anti-government protests – in 2009, 2017 and 2019 – using the popular chant “not Gaza, not Lebanon, I give my life for Iran” in reference to Tehran’s support for Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.