A pro-Hamas rally at Al-Quds University on March 23. Photo: Tom Gross/Mideast Dispatch.

JNS.org – Sari Nusseibeh, the president of the Palestinian Al-Quds University, has announced his retirement just days after a pro-Hamas rally occurred on its eastern Jerusalem campus.

In a statement issued by Al-Quds University, the school said that Nusseibeh, 65, is stepping down due to reaching the retirement age at the end of the academic year. He will be replaced by Dr. Imad Abu Kishk, the head of the school’s Political Science Department. But Nusseibeh will continue to remain as a faculty member in the Philosophy Department.

On Sunday, several hundred demonstrators took of the eastern Jerusalem campus of Al-Quds to support Hamas. According to independent journalist Tom Gross, who photographed the rally, the demonstrators were seen with black ski masks and carrying replicas of rockets. A Facebook page by the rally’s organizers called it the “the loyal—on the path of the great leaders” in commemoration of slain Hamas terrorists Ahmed Yassin, Abdul Aziz Rantisi and Ibrahim Maqadmeh, who were all assassinate by Israel.

A previous rally in support of another Palestinian terror group, Islamic Jihad, occurred on the Al-Quds campus in November, leading to a suspension in ties between Al-Quds and Brandeis University.