(Jerusalem) Israel “will not change” the status quo on the esplanade of the Mosques of Jerusalem, according to which Muslims can pray at this holy place but not the faithful of other religions, its head of diplomacy Yaïr Lapid assured Sunday in at a time when the international community fears a new flare-up of violence.
Posted at 11:34 a.m.
“Muslims pray on the Temple Mount, non-Muslims can only visit it. There is no change and there will be no change”, assured Mr. Lapid after violence on the esplanade of the Mosques, the third holiest place in Islam, considered the holiest place in the world. Judaism under its name of “Temple Mount”.
After deadly attacks in Israel, two of which were perpetrated by Palestinians, then operations by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank which left around twenty dead, violence broke out in mid-April on the esplanade of the Mosques.
These raise fears of a new escalation of violence, a year after an 11-day war between the Jewish state and Hamas, the armed Islamist movement in power in Gaza.
On Friday, more than 50 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli police, who said they intervened after young “rioters” threw stones from the esplanade towards the Wailing Wall below as the Jews celebrated Passover, their Passover.
The esplanade of the Mosques is located in the eastern, Palestinian, part of Jerusalem, occupied since 1967 by Israel. This holy place is administered by Jordan, but access to it is controlled by the Jewish state.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nayhan called on Sunday during a meeting in Cairo to “continue efforts to restore calm to Jerusalem and preserve the legal and historical status quo” of this site, while urging Israel to “cease measures that undermine the two-state solution”, Israeli and Palestinian.
“Hebronization”?
In recent years, the number of Jews visiting the esplanade has increased, and reached a record last week, with more than 3,800 Jews for Passover, according to the Israeli body in charge of visits.
Despite the ban on non-Muslims praying there, many Jewish worshipers are regularly seen praying surreptitiously there.
The tensions “are driven by concerns about Jewish access to the site and their ability to pray there,” Ofer Zalzberg, a specialist in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, told AFP.
Palestinians expressed to AFP their fear that the esplanade would become like the Ibrahimi mosque, called “Cave of the Patriarchs” by the Jews, in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank.
Under Muslim control for centuries, this site was divided into a part accessible to Jews and another to Muslims after the attack perpetrated there in 1994 by a Jewish extremist which killed 29 Muslims.
“There are posts on Palestinian social media that the Israeli government has decided to divide the (Jerusalem) compound for prayers, which is not the case. But that fear is there and it needs to be taken seriously because it drives people to action,” Zalzberg said.
Israel “has no intention of dividing the mosque esplanade for two religions,” Lapid said on Sunday, accusing the Palestinian Islamist movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad of “spreading” “false news” to “create an outbreak of violence”.
“Justified” intervention
The images of the deployment of the Israeli forces on the esplanade of the Mosques, and in the local mosque Al-Aqsa, which circulate in a loop on the Arabic chains caused strong reactions in the Middle East.
The UN and the United States have called for a “de-escalation” as rockets were fired last week from the Gaza Strip, Palestinian territory under Israeli blockade, towards the Jewish state.
The deployment of the police to the esplanade was “justified” because it made it possible “to avoid a disaster”, pleaded Sunday Mr. Lapid, while addressing a warning to Hamas.
On Sunday, the government closed access to Israel to Palestinian workers from Gaza for one day.