Israel to Reopen Contested Holy Site in Jerusalem
Grappling with police officers near the plateau revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
Oliver Weiken/European Pressphoto Agency
JERUSALEM — Israel barred all access to a contested sacred site in the Old City for the first time in many years on Thursday, a step that aPalestinian spokesman denounced as “a declaration of war” and one that strained Israel’s crucial alliance with neighboring Jordan.
By nightfall, Israel moved to ease the simmering hostility by announcing the site, which Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims the Noble Sanctuary, would reopen Friday morning. But the authorities said that Muslim men under 50 would be barred from prayers, as they have been frequently in recent weeks, and that Israeli police officers would be out in force. Palestinian leaders called for a mass protest.
The rare closing came after an Israeli counterterrorism unit killed a Palestinian man suspected of trying the night before to assassinate a leading agitator for increased Jewish access to the site, a cause that has fueled clashes at the site. It also followed months of rising tension and violence across the deeply divided city of Jerusalem, where Israel recently added 1,000 police officers in an effort to ward off what some experts warn could become a third Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
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The Area That Was Closed by Israel in the Old City
The holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City, which Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary, has long been a flash point in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
There is no more sensitive place in Jerusalem than the revered plateau where the ancient Jewish temples once stood — and where some extremists propose erecting a third one — and where thousands of Muslims now worship daily at Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
Jordan’s king is the Aqsa’s official custodian, so its fate has implications beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — on Thursday, the Jordanian minister of Islamic affairs called the closing “state terrorism by the Israeli authorities.” In 2000, a visit to the site by the future Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, accompanied by 1,000 Israeli police officers, helped ignite the violent second intifada.
“You are dealing with flammable material — it would be wise not to meddle in the business of holy places,” said Mustafa Abu Sway, dean of Islamic studies at Al Quds University and a member of the Islamic Waqf council, a trust that administers the site. “The average person is very upset. People are angry, and people are sad.”
East Jerusalem has been boiling since the start of summer, when a Palestinian teenager was kidnapped and killed in an apparent revenge attack for the earlier abduction-murder of three Israelis in the occupied West Bank. Some 800 youths have been arrested, accused of throwing stones or firebombs.
Events escalated further when a Palestinian driver plowed into a group of pedestrians in the northern part of Jerusalem last week, killing a 3-month-old Israeli baby and a young woman, and on Monday when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel pushed forward plans to expand two Jewish neighborhoods considered illegal settlements by most of the world.
Jerusalem’s 300,000 Arabs, the vast majority of whom have permanent residency but not Israeli citizenship, complain of neglect both by City Hall and by the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, making the situation especially volatile.
Conflict Grows Over Temple Mount
In 2013, The Times reported on mainstream Jews seeking to enter and pray at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, one of the most contested religious sites in the world, which Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary.
Video by Tamir Elterman on
September 21, 2013. by Ammar Awad/Reuters.
“There are three axes that have come together, leading to escalation and the potential danger of a loss of control,” said Udi Dekel, a former Israeli general and peace negotiator, citing the kidnapping, settlement activity and Temple Mount activism, and poverty and discrimination in the city’s Arab neighborhoods.
“We have to do some basic things to give East Jerusalem residents the sense that someone is looking after their affairs,” added Mr. Dekel, now a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “When there’s a barrel of explosives, you don’t throw matches.”
Israel seized the Temple Mount in 1967 along with the rest of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, but immediately handed back control of all but security to the Islamic Waqf, whose employees are paid by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Though Israel has frequently closed the site to either Jews or Muslims on certain days recently, a Waqf official said that Thursday’s full shutdown was the first since 1967.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, called the closing “a grave act” that would “add to the tensions and instability and create a dangerous atmosphere.” The Jordanian minister, Hayel Daoud, urged the international community to pressure Israel to lift the ban right away, the latest in a series of unusually harsh criticism by Jordanian leaders, including an extremely rare rebuke by King Abdullah himself.
“Jordanians feel the latest actions taken by Israel are directed against Jordan this time, not only against Palestinians,” said Jawad Anani, a former Jordanian foreign minister and deputy prime minister. “His Majesty is reflecting the anger domestically. If anything happens to Al Aqsa under his guardianship, there will be huge consequences inside and outside of Jordan, so there’s a lot of pressure.”
Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday condemned the shooting of the Jewish activist, Yehuda Glick, as “an act of terrorism.” He accused his Palestinian counterpart of inciting violence, pointing to a recent speech in which President Abbas called on his people to defend the mosque compound from Jewish encroachment “by all means.”
Clashes erupted after the killing of a Palestinian man suspected of shooting an advocate of increased Jewish access to the holy site.
Mahmoud Illean/Associated Press
“I have ordered significant reinforcements, so that we can maintain both security in Jerusalem and the status quo in the holy places,” Mr. Netanyahu said after an emergency session with his security team. “This struggle might be long, and here, like in other struggles, we must first of all lower the flames.”
Led by Mr. Glick and a small band of other activists and right-wing politicians, Jewish visits to the Temple Mount have increased over the past several years, along with protests of the Israeli police’s prohibition of non-Muslim prayer at the site. Some 8,500 Jews ascended the mount last year, up from about 5,800 in 2010, according to the Israel police.
“I call on the government of Israel to allow Jewish prayer on Temple Mount, Judaism’s most holy place,” David Ha’Ivri, a compatriot of Mr. Glick’s, wrote in a Twitter post Thursday. “If Jews are not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, no one else should be allowed to.”
Mr. Glick, who has frequently been arrested at the Temple Mount, was in stable but serious condition on Thursday, a hospital spokeswoman said, after suffering four gunshot wounds to the chest, neck, stomach and arm as he left a conference regarding Jewish prayer rites at the site. The Palestinian suspect killed by Israeli forces Thursday morning, Mu’atez Hijazi, worked in the kitchen of a restaurant at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, where the conference was held.
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said the counterterrorism unit surrounded a house in the Abu Tor neighborhood Thursday morning in order to arrest the suspect, but responded immediately when shots were fired. Taghreed Hijazi, the suspect’s aunt, said she heard a commotion early Thursday and peered out her kitchen window to find a police officer pointing a gun. “He ordered me to shut the window and get inside,” she said.
Mr. Hijazi, who Palestinian news agencies said was in his 30s and had been released from an Israeli prison in 2012 after serving 11 years, was found dead on the building’s roof. His 25-year-old sister, Shayma, accused the police of killing him “in cold blood.”
Prevented from accessing Aqsa, about 50 Muslim worshipers spread small carpets near the Lion’s Gate as darkness fell, surrounded by 25 Israeli police officers. A young imam read two verses from the Quran — one that called for fighting, and one about the acceptance of other religions.
“To prevent worshipers from praying is irrational policy, because it triggers violence and hatred,” said Samir Abu al-Leil, who works for the Waqf. “It is very hard to accept this situation. The violence will erupt soon.”
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