More than 2,300 Israelis enter Al-Aqsa compound, Palestinian officials say
Palestinian authorities said the visits during Tisha B’Av could rise to 5,000 by sundown amid tight Israeli security measures.
By Sofia Marchetti · World Affairs Correspondent
3 min read
More than 2,300 Israeli settlers and members of far-right groups entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Thursday during the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av, Palestinian officials said. The episode matters because the site is one of the most sensitive religious and political flashpoints in Jerusalem, and Palestinian authorities said the visits challenged long-standing rules governing worship there.
Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, also entered the compound under heavy police protection, according to Al Jazeera. Tisha B’Av commemorates the destruction of two ancient Jewish temples believed by Jews to have stood at the site, which Muslims know as Al-Aqsa and Jews call the Temple Mount.
The Palestinian administration of the Jerusalem governorate said its initial count covered a three-hour period and could rise through the day. It said the number might reach 5,000 by sundown, which would be higher than figures recorded during the same holiday in previous years.
Restrictions reported at the gates
Palestinian officials said Israeli forces tightened controls at entrances to the compound, blocked many Palestinian worshippers and students from entering and assaulted several worshippers. Al Jazeera correspondent Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said Israeli authorities had imposed strict measures in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Odeh said entry to the Al-Aqsa compound was limited largely to elderly people, while checkpoints around East Jerusalem and at Qalandiya were tightened. She said the visits were expected to continue into Friday, when prayers at the compound usually draw thousands of Muslim worshippers, and warned that the situation could lead to further confrontations.
The Jerusalem governorate said Israeli settlers carried out Talmudic rituals inside the compound, including prostration, singing and prayer. Israeli media reported that police allowed more than 1,000 Israelis to pray at the site on Thursday.
Under arrangements dating to 1967, non-Muslims may visit Al-Aqsa but are not permitted to pray there. The compound is Islam’s third-holiest site.
Ben-Gvir visit condemned
Haaretz reported that Ben-Gvir said Jews visiting the site on Tisha B’Av “feel like the owners” and praised what he described as “tremendous progress” there. The Jerusalem governorate called his entry a dangerous escalation and said it showed official Israeli support for actions once associated mainly with groups calling for a Jewish temple to be rebuilt at the site.
Odeh said the involvement of figures from Israel’s ruling Likud party reflected a political shift, with Palestinian and Muslim officials arguing that calls to rebuild a temple are now backed by important members of Israel’s government and parliament.
The Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs had earlier condemned calls for the visits as a dangerous escalation aimed at changing the site’s historical and legal status quo. It urged the international community to press Israel to stop them.
Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed it in 1980. The annexation is not recognised internationally.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.