Times of Israel liveblogged Thursday
Far right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Otzma Yehudit lawmaker Yitzhak Kroizer wave an Israeli flag on the Temple Mount ahead of this year’s Jerusalem Day march through the Old City of Jerusalem.
“We restored governance on the Temple Mount thanks to determination and deterrence. This year, Ramadan was the quietest, thanks to deterrence. The Temple Mount is in our hands,” he declares.
The ultranationalist lawmakers then dance and sing with the flag next to the Dome of the Rock.
This morning, Kroizer visited the site alongside his children and father, a prominent Kahanist rabbi, to mark Jerusalem Day. He was photographed prostrating on the ground at the flashpoint holy site, facing towards the Dome of the Rock.
“The time has come to get rid of all the mosques and work to construct the Temple!” he later wrote on Facebook.
On Wednesday, Negev, Galilee, and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, also of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, urged the public to visit the Temple Mount to see the “revolution” led there by Ben Gvir.
The Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City is the holiest place in Judaism, as the site of the two biblical temples. Known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, it is home to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam.
Jews are not officially allowed to pray at the Temple Mount under an arrangement known as the status quo, but the Israel Police, which comes under the purview of Ben Gvir’s ministry, have increasingly tolerated prayer there. Ben Gvir has said repeatedly that his policy is to allow Jewish prayer, drawing rebukes from US and international officials, as well as warnings from the security establishment that renewed conflict over the site could pose a risk to national security.
Ben Gvir has also rebuffed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated insistence that the decades-old status quo remains in force.
Israel and Lebanon share goal of dismantling Hezbollah, says Israeli official
Both Jerusalem and Beirut have the objective of disarming Hezbollah, a senior Israeli official tells The Times of Israel, as direct talks between the two enemy states begin in Washington.
“Our objective is the same one that we had last week and the week before, that we have to dismantle Hezbollah,” says the official. “That’s the mutual objective of both the Lebanese government and of Israel. And anybody who wants peace wants to dismantle Hezbollah.”
Turning to Iran, the official is not worried about US President Donald Trump’s insistence on continuing to seek a diplomatic solution to the Iranian threat.
“The president knows that Iran always lies and plays for time,” says the official. “We should not underestimate President Trump’s resolve in making sure that he reaches his objectives of making sure that Iran does not have nuclear capabilities.”
Israel has “degraded the regime considerably,” says the official. “We’ve taken out most of the first-tier leadership, most of the second-tier leadership. And now they have what you call the D-League team. And I don’t think the Iranian people want to replace one ayatollah with another one — Ayatollah Senior being replaced by Ayatollah Junior. But it’s up to them.”
Despite Hamas’s open defiance of Trump’s plan to disarm the Gaza terror group, the official is optimistic on that front as well.
“In terms of destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, as the president said, as the prime minister said, it’s going to happen the easy way or the hard way,” says the official.
