Arab leader: Muslims will rule Jerusalem

UMM AL-FAHM, Israel, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Israeli Arab Islamic leader Sheikh Raed Salah told a rally in Jerusalem the "Israeli occupation" of the city will soon vanish.

"With fire and blood we shall liberate al-Aqsa," Salah told 50,000 people Friday at the Islamic Movement's 11th annual rally in Umm al-Fahm, a city in Israel's Haifa district, YNetNews reported.

The Al-Aqsa mosque is part of a complex of buildings in Jerusalem known as the Temple Mount to Jews and some Christians.

"Soon Jerusalem will be the capital of the new Muslim caliphate, and the caliph's seat will be there," Salah said. Caliph is the term or title for the Islamic leader of the Ummah, or community of Islam.

Salah said history tells of many occasions in which the al-Aqsa mosque was occupied by foreign conquerors, but the occupiers left and so will what he termed the Israeli occupiers, YNet said.

"There are all sorts of plans to divide the al-Aqsa mosque but they will not succeed," he said.