Washington deemed the scene “unacceptable”, as tensions between Israel and Hamas and its allies are at their highest and talks about a truce are resuming.
Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right settler accustomed to provocations, prayed this Tuesday with some 3,000 worshipers on the site for the Jewish holiday Tisha Beav. In a video that he himself posted online, he notably calls for “defeating” Hamas rather than negotiating with the Palestinian Islamist movement.
“The United States strongly supports the preservation of the historic status quo with respect to the holy sites in Jerusalem, and any unilateral action, such as this one … that jeopardizes that status quo is unacceptable,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
“Not only is this unacceptable, it also distracts from what we believe is a vital moment as we work toward a ceasefire agreement” in the Gaza Strip, he added.
Violation of the status quo
Located in the area of the Holy City occupied and annexed by Israel, the Esplanade of the Mosques, the third holiest site in Islam, is built on the ruins of the Second Jewish Temple, destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. For Jews, it is the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.
On Tuesday morning, “about 2,250 Jews prayed, danced and raised the Israeli flag” on the esplanade, an official of the Waqf, the Jordanian administration of Muslim religious properties in Jerusalem, told AFP on condition of anonymity. During the second slot allocated to non-Muslims in the afternoon, “more than 700 Jews prayed there,” according to the same source.
Under a status quo decreed after Israel’s conquest of East Jerusalem in 1967, non-Muslims can go to the Mosque Esplanade, which houses the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, at specific times, without praying there, a rule increasingly disregarded by some nationalist Jews.
“Illegal incursions”
“There is no private policy of any minister on the Temple Mount – neither of the Minister of National Security nor of any other minister,” responded the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “This morning’s event on the Temple Mount is an exception to the status quo.”
For its part, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced an “escalation” and “provocations”, referring to “illegal incursions […] to prepare the imposition of total Israeli control and Judaization” of the places “in violation of international law.”
