Salah faces trial on charges of membership of an illegal organization and inciting violence over a speech he gave last month at the funerals of three Israeli Arabs who killed two police officers at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.

“The Israeli magistrate court in the northern city of Haifa has decided to extend the detention of Sheikh Raed Salah until the end of his trail,” Khaled Zbarqa told Anadolu Agency.

“This means that Sheikh Salah will be kept in detention for several months.”

He said an appeal against the court's decision would be lodged.

“It is an unprecedented decision,” Zbarqa said. “It proves that Sheikh Raed is a prisoner of conscience, tried because of his religious views.”

Salah was arrested on Aug. 14 at his home in the northern city of Umm al-Fahm.

Salah, a long-standing figurehead of Palestinian resistance, heads the Israeli branch of the Islamic Movement, which was outlawed in 2015.