Zahra Billoo, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’s (CAIR) San Francisco branch, mourned the death of top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, portraying the terrorist as a martyr before calling for Israel’s eradication.
Zahra Billoo, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’s (CAIR) San Francisco branch, mourned the death of top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, portraying the terrorist as a martyr before calling for Israel’s eradication.
« Never say that those martyred in the cause of Allah are dead—in fact, they are alive! But you do not perceive it », Billoo wrote as news broke of Haniyeh’s death in Tehran. « Tonight, we mourn Ismail himself but know his martyrdom is not in vain. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. »
Billoo is the highest ranking CAIR official to publicly praise Haniyeh, who shortly before his death attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Chants of « death to America » and « death to Israel » rang out at the ceremony, where Haniyeh was filmed embracing Pezeshkian. Haniyeh was killed just hours later through a reported strike on his luxury home in Tehran.
CAIR is one of the main forces driving anti-Israel protests across the country, with several of its leaders praising Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. Haniyeh watched the attack from a luxury building in Qatar, where he smiled and prayed with other Hamas terrorists.
