Israel’s new national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has briefly visited Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, a site also revered by Jews, prompting fierce condemnation from the Palestinians and several Arab countries.
“The Temple Mount is open to all,” Ben-Gvir said on Twitter, using the Jewish name for the site.
Video footage showed him strolling at the periphery of the compound, surrounded by a heavy security detail and flanked by a fellow Orthodox Jew.
In an apparent effort to calm anger over the visit, an official in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the leader was fully committed to the site’s decades-old status quo allowing only Muslim worship there.
When asked about the visit, a White House National Security Council spokesperson said any unilateral action that jeopardises the status quo of Jerusalem holy sites is unacceptable.
An Israeli official said the 15-minute visit by Ben-Gvir, a senior member of Netanyahu’s new nationalist-religious cabinet, complied with an arrangement dating back decades that allows non-Muslims to visit on condition they do not pray.
He did not approach the mosque itself.
Although the visit at the flashpoint site passed without incident, it risks worsening frictions with Palestinians after an upsurge in violence in the occupied West Bank in the past year.
Read the article by Dan Williams in The West Australian.