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Jordan summoned Israel’s ambassador in Amman on Tuesday to protest an Israeli police resolution to prevent the Jordanian envoy from entering a volatile holy site in Jerusalem. The incident temporarily heightened tensions between neighbors and reflected heightened sensitivity around the holy compound under Israel’s new ultra-nationalist government.
Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said its ambassador to Israel, Ghassan Majali, was prevented from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, Islam’s third-holiest site. The site, located on a vast plateau that is also home to the iconic Golden Dome of the Rock. , is respected by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount.
The holy compound is administered by the devout Jordanian government as part of a casual deal after Israel seized East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War. Israel is guilty of security at the site.
Israeli police said Majali arrived at the holy site “without any prior coordination with police officers,” prompting an officer at the front of the compound who did not recognize the diplomat to inform his commander about the unplanned visit. Pending instructions, officers detained Majali, as well as Azzam al-Khatib, director of Jordan’s Waqf. The ambassador refused to wait and leave, Israel police said.
Images widely shared online show Majali, among other Muslim worshippers, in front of the Lions’ Gate of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City. An Israeli policeman blocks his own and yells at Majali in Arabic to back off, according to the video. . Al-Khatib answers the phone as visitors argue with the policemen amid the sizzle of the policemen’s walkie-talkie.
“If the ambassador had briefly waited a few more minutes for the officer to be briefed, the organization would have entered,” the police said, emphasizing that “coordination” with the Israeli police regime ahead of such visits.
But Jordan said the move was a provocation. Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said Israel’s ambassador had won a “strongly drafted letter of protest to be transmitted without delay to his government. “to “any action that would undermine the sanctity of holy places. “
Tuesday, the moment Jordan summoned Israel’s ambassador to Amman since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new right-wing, religiously conservative government came to power. Earlier this month, Israel’s national security minister, ultra-nationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the Jerusalem holy site despite threats from the militant organization Hamas and a cascade of condemnations from the Arab world.
Jordan, along with Palestinians and many Muslims, sees Israeli visits to the compound as an attempt to replace the prestige of the Jewish faithful and give them more rights. Ben-Gvir and other far-right ministers who swear a hard line against the Palestinians have threatened to rein in Israel’s ties to Arab states, including Jordan and Egypt, which have maintained peace treaties with Israel for decades.
The slightest change in the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, one of the most disputed sites in the region, may be another flashpoint between Israel and the Muslim world. Israel’s moves abroad have sparked violent protests and wider conflicts.
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Associated Press Omar Akour in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
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