Raida Saeed, a resident of the town of Anata in northern Jerusalem and a long-standing Palestinian activist in the Al Aqsa compound opposing Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, has been sentenced to one year in prison for incitement and for violating an administrative order that barred her from entering the site. According to the court’s decision, she will begin serving her sentence in early January 2026.
How did Raida Saeed operate inside the Al Aqsa compound?
Raida Saeed, 51 years old and a mother of three, presents herself as an amateur journalist and photographer. She works for a Palestinian radio station. Saeed is part of the Murabitat, a group of women who claim to protect the Al Aqsa Mosque, arriving daily to the compound and physically positioning themselves as guardians of the Muslim holy site. In practice, however, their goal is to harass Jewish visitors, disrupt their ascent to the Temple Mount, and incite the Palestinian public by asserting that the mosque is allegedly in danger.
Saeed frequently posts on social media, sharing her observations from the Temple Mount, encouraging her followers to come to the site and “defend” the mosque from what she describes as Jewish “intrusions.” Due to her activity, police officers charged with maintaining order at the site routinely remove her from the compound, at times physically dragging her out. The Jerusalem District Police Commander issued multiple administrative distancing orders against her, but Saeed persistently violated them, continued entering the compound, and kept posting incitement online. Since 2020, she has been forcibly removed from the Temple Mount at least seven times.
In 2023, after repeated violations of the distancing orders, prosecutors filed charges against her for incitement and for breaching the administrative orders. The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court ordered that she remain under house arrest until the end of legal proceedings, effectively preventing her from continuing her disruptive activity. This Wednesday, the court sentenced her to one year in actual prison time.
