GAZA CITY
Palestinian faction Hamas on Sunday warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from embarking on a visit to the Ibrahimi Mosque in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
In a statement, Hamas warned Netanyahu of "the consequences of storming and the desecrating the Ibrahimi Mosque."
Earlier in the day, Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Netanyahu will visit the flashpoint site – known to Jews as the "Cave of the Patriarchs" – in the coming days as part of an electoral tour to the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Hamas slammed the intended visit as a "dangerous escalation" and stressed that the Palestinian people won't stand idly by.
Revered by both Muslims and Jews, the site is believed to contain the graves of the prophets Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Since the 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinian worshippers inside the Ibrahimi Mosque by extremist Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein, Israeli authorities have kept Muslim and Jewish worshippers segregated.
Hebron is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinian Muslims and some 500 Jewish settlers. The latter live in a number of Jewish-only settlement compounds heavily guarded by Israeli troops.
