In a major reversal, Israeli security forces on Tuesday began removing controversial metal detectors that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered placed at the entrances to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The metal detectors angered Palestinians, who said the devices were installed not for their safety but to increase Israel’s control over access to the mosque.
Netanyahu and his supporters said the metal scanners were needed after three Arab Israeli gunmen smuggled homemade machine guns into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound on July 14, then shot and killed two Israeli policemen at the site, which both Muslims and Jews regard as holy.
The removal of the devices appears to have been part of a deal struck between Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who oversees the administration of the holy site as part of an agreement dating to 1967.
In a telephone call on Monday, the king urged Netanyahu to “remove the cause” of the current crisis, according to Jordan’s official news service.
The unilateral decision by Netanyahu to set up the metal detectors had upset the Jordanian monarch, the official custodian of the Jerusalem mosque, and sparked a surge of deadly violence and protests in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Amman, Jordan’s capital.
The removal of the metal detectors began just a few hours after Israel and Jordan managed to end a diplomatic showdown.
Read the full article by William Booth at the Australian Financial Review.