TEL AVIV – An Imam in Gaza said in a sermon broadcast on Hamas TV that coronavirus is a “soldier of Allah (God)” sent to harm Western countries while not affecting Palestinians and Muslims.

A clip published by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) shows Gazan Imam Jamil Al-Mutawa saying the virus was part of God’s revenge for the U.S. peace plan for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Imam in Hamas TV Friday Sermon a Day before Coronavirus Cases Confirmed in Gaza: This Virus Is a Soldier of Allah; Muslims Are the Least Affected pic.twitter.com/Ww5PII9Dv0 — MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 23, 2020

“Look how anyone who schemes against the Al-Aqsa Mosque is being shattered to smithereens,” he said. “This is the greatness of Allah!”

“They talk about 25 million infected people in just one of the fifty [U.S.] states. Allah be praised,” he said.

“Look how empty the Israeli streets are and look how croded this mosque is,” Mutawa said to a crowd of hundreds in Gaza’s White Mosque.

“Unleash the coronavirus against the people behind the evil deal [of the century],” Mutawa said.

Two days after the clip was broadcast by the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV, the first two cases were confirmed in the Gaza Strip.

Sixty cases of the virus in the Palestinian-ruled areas of the West Bank have been confirmed.

Iran, a Muslim country, has one of the highest cases of the virus in the world.

Mutawa is not the first Muslim cleric to refer to COVID-19 as a “soldier of Allah.”

A preacher on official Palestinian Authority TV said the virus “is one of Almighty Allah’s soldiers” and went on to say God is “unleashing it on those who attack His believers.”

Meanwhile, Tunisian cleric Bechir Ben Hassen, who lives in France, also left little doubt as to why the deadly virus has struck.

“The virus is a soldier in Allah’s army. Today, it’s toppling people as if they were insects,” he said.

Neither explained how it is people in Muslim countries from Iran to Malaysia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon and of course the Palestinian Authority, are also being afflicted at alarming rates.

“The true meaning of the epidemics is a trial from Almighty Allah and a punishment. A trial for the believers and a punishment for the sinner,” the PA preacher said according to a tralsation by media watchdog, Palestinian Media Watch.

“If they have stood firm and place their trust in Allah, then they will receive an enormous reward, and whoever dies in the epidemic merits the reward of Martyrdom… If the epidemic harms non-believers, from among the abusers and the aggressors, then that is punishment… This [Corona] virus is one of Almighty Allah’s soldiers, and He is unleashing it on those who attack His believers,” the unidentified imam added.

According to Ben Hassen, China suffered from coronavirus because of the siege on a million Uighur Muslims.

“The Chinese authorities imposed a siege on a million Uighur Muslims, and now, 50 million Chinese are besieged because of the virus, and they can’t find a cure for it because this is God’s will,” Ben Hassen.

“Allah has soldiers, including angels and viruses and plagues, and if he wants to set them on the public, nothing in heaven or on earth can stop him … Just as he drowned Pharaoh’s armies in the sea, he has given the Uighurs victory over the Chinese authorities via the coronavirus,” he added.

Meanwhile, Canadian imam Hussein Amer said the coronavirus outbreak was because of bat soup eaten by the Chinese, who, he said, “eat everything that in the world that moves…. including aborted human fetuses.”

“[I]n China they believe that they can eat anything in the world that moves. I would have said that this excludes eating human beings, but it turns out that they even eat fetuses.

“By Allah, this is freakish. They eat fetuses – aborted babies,” he added.