Lawmakers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and a minister from the far-right Otzma Yehudit were among hundreds of Jewish visitors to the flashpoint Temple Mount on Thursday.
The visits came as security forces geared up for a potential renewal of violence, ahead of a controversial march through Jerusalem, including the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, slated to go ahead despite recent tensions.
Hundreds of Jewish visitors entered the holy site, including Negev and Galilee Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf and MK Yitzhak Kroizer — both from the Otzma Yehudit party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir — as well as Likud MKs Dan Illouz, Amit Halevi and Ariel Kallner.
In addition, Ayala Ben Gvir — Itamar Ben Gvir’s wife — and former MK Shuli Moalem-Refaeli also visited the compound.
The visits by the minister and lawmakers were quickly condemned by Jordan’s Foreign Ministry as “provocative and unacceptable.” Under their 1994 peace treaty, Israel recognizes Amman’s “special role” at the Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem.
The Hashemite Kingdom additionally warned against the “provocative and escalatory” Flag March.
Earlier Thursday, senior Likud lawmaker David Bitan said it would be inappropriate for lawmakers from his party to visit the flashpoint site to mark Jerusalem Day.
“[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu could have called them and told them not to go,” Bitan told the Ynet news site.
“It is not proper for Likud MKs to visit the Temple Mount. This is not what should be done. People have become extremists,” he told Army Radio, adding that he saw no issue with lawmakers joining the Flag March.
Former MK Sami Abou Shahadeh, leader of the Palestinian nationalist Balad party that failed to enter the Knesset in the 2022 election, condemned the “violent and provocative storming of the Al Aqsa Mosque by extremist Jews,” saying it was “a crime with government support and police protection and help.”
“Racism, extremism and stupidity are leading to dangerous and dark places. This is the policy of Israel’s government — power, terror and violence,” he claimed.
The Temple Mount site is the holiest for Jews, as the location of two biblical temples, while the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Mount is the third holiest shrine in Islam, turning the area into a major source of tension in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many Muslims deny any Jewish connection to the site and view all Israeli presence there as provocative.
Video posted online by an activist on Thursday morning showed a Jewish group openly praying on the Temple Mount, contravening informal understandings according to which Jews are allowed to visit the site — at certain hours, under strict restrictions and through a predetermined route — but not to pray there.
The longstanding arrangement has frayed in recent years as Muslims designate new areas of the Mount as mosques, and as groups of Jews, including hardline religious nationalists, have regularly prayed at the site. The Israeli government, nonetheless, says it is committed to maintaining the status quo.
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