More than 200 scholars and imams in Mauritania yesterday evening issued a fatwa prohibiting normalization with Israel, stressing that the relationship with the usurping entity of the land of Palestine and the occupier of Jerusalem and its environs is religiously forbidden and not permissible in no way."

In the fatwa signed by more than two hundred people in al-Tawfiq Mosque in Nouakchott, the scholars and imams said that “normalization is a complete support and support for the usurping Zionists in all their siege, killing and destruction, and it has nothing to do with peace and reconciliation at all.”

The scholars and imams concluded that normalization is one of the greatest prohibitions, considering that the reality of normalization is loyalty, affection, ally with the enemy, and cooperated with him in various fields against Islam and Muslims.

In the context, the spokesman for the scholars, who signed the fatwa, Al-Mukhtar bin Amen, told Anadolu Agency that "normalization with Israel is a treason," calling on the Islamic peoples to reject any attempt of normalization. He added, "This occupying enemy continues its aggression, usurpation of lands, and expansion of its usurped territory. It is a cancer in Muslim countries that is constantly expanding, and normalizing with it is an aid to it in sin and aggression."

In early January, a number of Mauritanian parliament members called for the enactment of legislation criminalizing normalization with Israel and submitting it as soon as possible for approval.

And Mauritania previously established relations with Israel under American pressure in 1999 during the era of the president Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya. These relations remained rejected by the Mauritanian people and a subject of criticism by politicians who continued to demand an end to normalization with Israel, considering it one of the main reasons that led to the coup against the rule of Taya.

In 2009, Mauritania froze its relations and severed ties with Israel in 2009 in protest against the war on Gaza and expelled the Israeli ambassador a year later. Thus, ending all the diplomatic relations between the two sides were officially launched on March 21, 2010.

In the past, Israeli and American press sources revealed that Mauritania and Indonesia intend to join the path of normalization after the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.