Israel’s new far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir briefly visited Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, a site also revered by Jews, angering the Palestinians and drawing a slew of condemnations. | Reuters
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would seek a Security Council condemnation, a statement published by the Palestinian WAFA News Agency said.
In an apparent effort to lower the temperature, an official in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the premier was fully committed to the site’s decades-old status quo allowing only Muslim worship there.An Israeli official said the 15-minute visit by Ben-Gvir, a senior member of Netanyahu’s new nationalist-religious cabinet, complied with an arrangement that allows non-Muslims to visit but not pray.
Israel denies having such designs. An official at Netanyahu’s office said “claims of a change in the status quo are groundless”. The rise of Ben-Gvir in Netanyahu’s government, one of the most right-wing in Israeli history, has deepened Palestinian anger about their long-failed efforts to secure a state in territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Turkey, which has recently ended a long-running diplomatic rift with Israel, condemned the visit as “provocative.” On Tuesday, pious Jews fasted to commemorate a Babylonian siege on the first of those temples, in the 6th century BC.
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