An imam from Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque last week called for Israel’s destruction while on a visit to Italy, urging Arab armies — including those of Egypt and Jordan, with whom Israel has signed peace agreements — to “liberate” the land.

During an Islamic conference in the city of Milan, the cleric, Raed al-Danna, said Israel would soon “vanish,” enabling the Palestinians to return to Jaffa, Haifa and other cities within the Green Line.

“In Gaza, there are great and proud men, whose feet are firmly planted in the ground, who have realized that darkness and the Jewish state would vanish, and that the morning sun will rise on Palestine,” he said in comments filmed by al-Jazeera and translated by media monitoring group MEMRI.

“We will return to the sea of Jaffa, to the sands of Haifa, to the palm trees of Beit Shean, and to the hills of Lod and Ramla,” al-Danna predicted.