Dr. Yunis Al Astal, a Hamas MP and imam, issued a ruling Sunday that Palestinians who do not vote for Hamas representatives in the upcoming municipal elections “will be a heretical apostate against the religion of God and His laws,” and can only gain atonement after making a religious pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Palestinians are slated to hold municipal elections in the West Bank and in Gaza on October 8.
Al Astal was banned from the UK in 2009 for glorifying terrorism and has made numerous calls for mass violence against Jews in the past.
According to the The Middle East Media Research Institute, he said in May of 2011 on Hamas’s Al Aqsa television channel, that the Jews were brought to Palestine for the “great massacre” through which God will “relieve humanity of their evil.” And in March of 2014 he said: “We must massacre [the Jews]… to prevent them from sowing corruption in the world.”