In a five-minute video titled “Tel Aviv Is Also a Land of Muslims,” Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called on Muslims to carry out a jihad against the United States in response to America’s decision to move its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon, took over the radical terror organization after founder Osama bin Laden was shot dead by American forces in 2011.
Al-Zawahiri railed against the Palestinian Authority as the “sellers of Palestine” and against U.S. President Donald Trump as “the true face of the modern Crusade” who could only be met with “resistance through the call of Jihad,” according to a transcript by the SITE monitoring agency.
He also said that bin Laden called the United States “the first enemy of the Muslims, and swore that it will not dream of security until it is lived in reality in Palestine and until all the armies of disbelief leave the land of Muhammad.”
Hamas called on Gazans to engage in violent protests and break through the security fence with Israel on Monday, at the same time as the U.S. embassy inauguration festivities would take place in Jerusalem.
