Some 1,400 Jewish settlers entered the Jerusalem Mosque Esplanade on Tuesday morning, where the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, is located, according to figures from the Waqf, the Jordanian religious foundation that administers the site.
Some settlers raised Israeli flags and prayed at the site, although this is prohibited.
Under the “status quo” in effect since 1967 – when Israel occupied the eastern part of Jerusalem, where the Esplanade is located – the site is reserved exclusively for Muslim worship, while Jews can enter only as visitors.
Taking advantage of the religious holiday of Tisha B'Av, amid chants and shouts of provocation, hundreds of settlers – mostly young people, but also adults and women – advanced along the esplanade, known among Jews as the Temple Mount because of the belief that the Second Temple was built there, the holiest site in Judaism.
The Jews, who entered the esplanade escorted by the police and in an organized manner, entered in groups of 100, but the tensions caused led the police to reduce the delegations to 50.
The ultra-Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, was also present in one of these groups, and this is the third time that he has visited this place of worship on key dates to demand the right of Jews to pray there, provoking the anger of the Palestinian population.
“We have made significant progress on Israeli sovereignty here. Our policy is to allow Jewish prayer,” Ben Gvir said from the site in a message posted on X.
As usually happens during visits by the hardline minister, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office issued a statement dissociating itself from his actions.
“This morning's event on the Temple Mount is an exception to the status quo,” the text states, in which Netanyahu stresses that Israeli policy on the holy site “has not changed” and that there is no “private policy” of Ben Gvir on the site, because legislating on this subject “depends on the government and its leader.”
“We demand that the American administration intervene immediately and force the (Israeli) occupation government to end these provocations against holy religious sites,” Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaineh said on Tuesday after learning of the incursion.
The visit to the Mosque Esplanade in September 2000 by Ariel Sharon, then leader of the ruling Likud party, triggered the second Intifada.