Bombing Al-Azhar University in Gaza Is a Zionist Assault That Tests the Egyptian Position

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) denounces the bombing of the Al-Azhar University buildings in Al-Mughraqa, Gaza, in a direct hostile message against Al-Azhar Al-Sharif in Egypt and its Grand Sheikh, Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb. This comes two days after the Israeli National Security Council released a report attacking Al-Azhar Al-Sharif and its supportive positions of the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to defend their land and the Muslim sanctities.

While the Brotherhood condemns this barbaric aggression, it denounces the language of the Israeli report’s blatant interference in the affairs of the Egyptian state, up to demanding constitutional amendments, to allow changing the Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh, demanding Muslim countries to sever their ties with Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, and tightening control over its support and funding regionally and internationally. 

The MB calls on the Egyptian government to support Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, and to confront the Zionist attempt to undermine it, as it is the greatest cultural extension of the Egyptian state.

The Muslim Brotherhood views the bombardment of the Al-Azhar University in Gaza –despite not being directly affiliated with Al-Azhar in Egypt– an assault on Al-Azhar’s global symbolic value and its religious status among the peoples of the Muslim world, and a new test of the Egyptian position towards the enemy’s recurrent violations on Egypt’s eastern borders.   

MB Official Spokesperson

Osama Suleiman

(Saturday, 20 Rabi’ al-Thani 1445 AH / 4 November 2023)