CAIRO (AP) - The chief Palestinian Muslim cleric is urging Muslims to visit Jerusalem, breaking a decades-long taboo against visiting the holy city because it would be considered support for Israel.

Sheikh Tayseer al-Timimi, reversing an earlier edict, said Wednesday that Muslims should travel to Jerusalem and perform pilgrimage to Muslim holy places in the disputed city.

Al-Timimi had previously banned Muslims from visiting the city,
arguing that would be considered normalizing relations with Israel. Other Muslim clerics also ban such visits, saying Muslims should
wait until a Palestinian state is established with east Jerusalem as its capital.

Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque is one of Islam's most sacred shrines and Arabs and Muslims used to visit regularly to worship there until Israel seized east Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab Israeli war.

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