Sydney mosque farewells ‘martyrs’ killed while attacking Israel
About 400 people filed into the mosque on Saturday to commemorate three Hezbollah ‘martyrs’ – including two killed while attacking Israel – in a ceremony that included a vow to carry on ‘peacefully’.
Jewish community leaders fear the commemoration of Hezbollah “martyrs” in Sydney mosques will incite hatred and division in Australia, following revelations six members of the terrorist group killed while attacking Israel were farewelled in two separate ceremonies at the weekend.
With the Shia militia group increasing its attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon – and under pressure from its Iranian backers to join the war initiated by Hamas from Gaza – more such commemorations are expected in Australian mosques.
Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said: “We are seeing increasing threats to our social cohesion and glorifying terrorists to an Australian audience risks inciting further hatred and destabilising our society.
“It plays into the hands of violent extremists who want to deepen fault lines and rip our nation apart.”
On Saturday, about 400 people filed into Masjid Arrahman – also known as Al Rahman Mosque – in Kingsgrove, southwest Sydney, to commemorate three Hezbollah fighters who died this week in Lebanon: Taha Abbas Abbas, Ali Marmar and Hussam Ibrahim.
The three were all members of the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist organisation Hezbollah, which controls Southern Lebanon.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah announced that Abbas and Marmar had been killed while “on jihad”.
The pair were killed by an Israel Defence Forces drone strike as they were firing mortar shells into Israel from southern Lebanon.
Ibrahim was killed by Israeli shelling earlier this month.
On Saturday, the mosque’s imam, Sheikh Youssef Nabha, told a packed crowd the three men were “martyrs” and he would not be deterred by media criticisms of the ceremony, saying they had commemorated martyrs before and would continue to do so.
“The Telegraph, Sky News – they condemn us and say we should stop, but we’ve done this for many years,” the Sheikh said in Arabic, translated into English by an attendee.
The Daily Telegraph and Sky News are both part of News Corp Australia, as is this masthead.
Sheikh Nabha said “authorities” had communicated with the mosque prior to Saturday’s service, but he told the crowd “we will carry on peacefully”.
He said people and the media thought of the Muslim community as dangerous, or not to be trusted, but noted there had never been issues and that they were a peaceful group.
In the 90-minute long commemoration service, Sheikh Nabha also made a call to help Gaza civilians, said the attacks by Israel on the Strip – in retaliation to Hamas’s attacks on October 7 – was a “plan” to eradicate the Palestinian territories, and criticised both the US support for Israel and their intervention in the region’s historical conflicts.
A few police cars did laps of the looped road on which the mosque sits while the mosque had hired a private security firm for the event.
Sheikh Nabha said Gaza’s future would be decided by those countries surrounding Israel and the Palestinian territories. He also said he would encourage Sydney’s Muslims to migrate if the government ever impeded on it practising its faith, and Australia could take in Israelis and Muslims could “return home”.
It is understood the sheikh is from Lebanon, as was the vast majority of those who attended Al Rahman Mosque.
The Australian reported on Saturday how counter-terrorism police and the Home Affairs Department had been alerted to the service, as well as its condemnation from Jewish groups.
The Australian can also reveal that, simultaneously, another commemoration service was being held at Al Zahra Mosque a few suburbs away, in Arncliffe, for another three “martyrs”: Mahdi Muhammad Atwi, Ibrahim Habib Aldebek and Hussain Abbas Fasaee. Hezbollah said last week that Atwi had died, and a pamphlet for the commemoration service referred to the three as “Shaheed”, the Arabic term for martyr.
Dvir Abramovich, chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission, whose cousin, police inspector Chen Amir, was murdered in a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv in August, condemned the service.
“I feel sick by this stomach-churning celebration of the evil, slaughter and cult death of Hezbollah that will shock the conscience of every Australian,” he told The Australian.
“How can anyone, in a house of worship, honour mass murderers and terrorists?”
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