Khaled al-Mughrabi, who called on Muslims to murder Jews in hate-filled, anti-Semitic rants from Al Aqsa Mosque, jailed by Jerusalem court.

A Muslim preacher who incited the murder of Jews during a series of anti-Semitic lectures on the Temple Mount has been sentenced to 11 months in jail.

Jerusalem District Court sentenced Khaled al-Mughrabi for fomenting racist and religious hatred against Jews so as to spur attacks against them in his bi-weekly sermons. The sermons came to light after the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) organization posted translated footage from several of his rants.

An indictment against the hate preacher was initially approved by former Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein late last year.

The indictment accused al-Mughrabi of aiming via his sermons to encourage racist attitudes towards Jews, to incite violence against them and to foment hatred on the basis of race, religion and nationality. It further stated that he fully intended for his words to be translated into violent action, in the form of terrorist attacks against Israeli security forces and Jewish civilians.

The Honenu legal rights organization, which filed the indictment against al-Mughrabi, praised the successful conviction and jailing of the hate preacher.

"We welcome this verdict, which will see a Muslim Sheikh who repeatedly incited against Jews behind bars," the organization said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, only our involvement and the lodging of repeated complaints on the basis of material exposed by the Palestinian Media Watch organization, and even an appeal to the Attorney General and Jerusalem District Prosecutor, led the authorities to (finally) deal with Mughrabi," it continued, while lamenting that there were still "many just like him" inciting terrorism against Jews with apparent impunity.

But while Honenu's tireless work lobbying the Israeli legal system bore fruit, its efforts to persuade YouTube to take down videos of the sermons went ignored.