ABU GHOSH, October 9. /TASS/. The mosque named after Akhmad Kadyrov in the Israeli town of Abu Ghosh near Jerusalem was not damaged when the Palestinian side shelled Israeli territory as it had been reported earlier on Monday, TASS confirmed from the site.

Earlier, the press service of the Israeli Foreign Ministry wrote on its Russian-language Telegram channel that the mosque had been damaged as a result of rocket fire, posting a photo that showed smoke rising over the mosque.

The commentary to the photo said this had been "a direct hit by a rocket from Hamas terrorists". Eyewitnesses in Abu Ghosh denied these reports in a conversation with a TASS correspondent. "The mosque is intact. There was no hit. The evening prayer went as usual, people came to pray. The rocket did land, but not here, nearby," they said.

According to one of the eyewitnesses, the rocket damaged a building in the vicinity. "Windows were smashed there and conditioners were damaged," he said, adding that at least three people had been wounded, but there were no fatalities.

Abu Ghosh is located a 15-minute drive from Jerusalem. The town is inhabited by ethnic Chechens. According to researchers, Chechens settled there more than 400 years ago.

The Akhmad-Haji Kadyrov Mosque in Abu Ghosh, one of the largest mosques on Israeli territory, was opened in 2014. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov took part in the ceremony to unveil the mosque. It can hold about 3,000 people and has four 50-meter-high minarets and a golden dome.

The decision to build the mosque was made at the request of local ethnic Chechen residents. Simultaneously, Akhmad-Haji Kadyrov Street, where the mosque sits, was reconstructed. The construction was carried out with the assistance of the Chechen leader and the regional public foundation named after Akhmad Kadyrov.