JERUSALEM – Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir briefly visited the compound housing the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on Tuesday, a move condemned by Palestinians as provocative and, despite warnings, may lead to violence.
“The Temple Mount is open to all,” Ben-Gvir said on Twitter, the site’s Jewish name. An accompanying photograph showed him walking outside the compound, surrounded by a bodyguard organization and flanked by another Orthodox Jew.
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An Israeli official said the 15-minute stopover was carried out in accordance with what is known as a decades-old prestige quo agreement that allows non-Muslims to make a stopover as long as they don’t pray. Everything went smoothly, the official said.
The rise of Ben-Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party, to join a religious-nationalist coalition under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election has deepened Palestinian anger over long-standing frustrations with its goal of statehood.
In a new act of violence in the nearby occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager in a clash, medical officials and witnesses said. There was no immediate comment from the military.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it “strongly condemns the assault on Al-Aqsa Mosque by extremist Minister Ben-Gvir and considers it an unprecedented provocation and escalation of the conflict. “
A spokesman for Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist organization that rejects coexistence with Israel, said Al-Aqsa “will be Palestinian, Arab and Islamic. . . and no fascist can replace this fact. “
However, there is no indication that Ben-Gvir approached the mosque. Once a supporter of ending the ban on Jewish prayer at the compound, since taking office, he has spoken more evasively about the desire to impose “non-discrimination” there.
“If Hamas thinks it can deter me with threats, it perceives that times have changed,” Ben-Gvir said on Twitter. “There is a government in Jerusalem!
On Monday, Jewish lawmaker Almog Cohen Israel Radio Kan said that “the party’s aspiration is, yes, God willing, that all religions can pray on the Temple Mount. “
But Netanyahu, now in his sixth term as minister, vowed to maintain the “status quo” around the holy sites.
The Al-Aqsa compound, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is the third holiest in Islam. It is also Judaism’s holiest, a remnant of two ancient temples of faith.
Located in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a 1967 war, the compound also serves as the center of Palestinian hope for founding a state in those territories.
Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its indivisible capital, a prestige that is not recognized throughout the world. (Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ari Rabinovitch; editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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