A group of nine Israelis on Monday burned a Turkish flag in front of Turkey’s Consulate in occupied East Jerusalem to protest Turkey’s decision to turn Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia back into a mosque.
TURKEY REJECTS OUTSIDE ATTEMPTS TO INTERFERE IN ITS DECISION
The group, calling itself the Jerusalem Initiative, is made up of Christians and Jews and includes at least one person from the Israeli army, Elias Zarina, the group’s head, said.
Zarina also called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to support and protect Christians around the world.
Group members waved flags of Greece and the Byzantine Empire and hung banners with anti-Turkish slogans outside the consulate.
On Friday, a Turkish court annulled a 1934 Cabinet decree that had turned Hagia Sophia into a museum, paving the way for its use again as a mosque after an 85-year hiatus. Before that it had been a mosque for nearly 500 years.
