Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to add the Ibrahimi Mosque to his planned visit to Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the southern West Bank, the Israeli news site Arutz Sheva reported.

The report highlighted that Netanyahu visited the illegal Eli settlement south of Nablus in the northern West Bank last week as part of his efforts to win settler votes in the upcoming Knesset elections.

“Unfortunately, Netanyahu is using residents during elections,” Knesset member from the Jewish Home Ayelet Shaked said, according to Arutz Sheva.

Other right-wing candidates criticized Netanyahu for “trying to collect votes from the right-wing bloc instead of trying to enlarge it.”

They recalled that Netanyahu’s last visit to a West Bank settlement was on the eve of last elections, according to Arutz Sheva.

The Ibrahimi Mosque is known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs, and is the site where both faiths believe the Biblical patriarch Abraham is buried.

A senior Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishiq, warned Netanyahu of the consequences of his expected visit.

“We warn the criminal Netanyahu of the consequence of storming and desecrating the noble Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron city, and we consider this a serious escalation to which our people won’t remain silent,” al-Rishiq wrote on his Facebook account.

(Ma’an – www.maannews.net)