“The State of Israel is pointless without the Temple Mount,” settler MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud Beytenu) said at the first-ever Knesset plenum discussion of Israeli sovereignty over the holy site on Tuesday. Feiglin said that “behind the nation’s back, we gave up every remnant of Israeli sovereignty on the Mount. Any terrorist organization can wave its flag, but the Israeli flag? It’s unmentionable.” Hadash’s MKs demonstratively walked out of the provocative discussion.
Israeli occupation policemen standing guard at the Ras Al-Amud neighborhood in East-Jerusalem. In the background, the Al-Aqsa mosque (Photo: Edo Medicks)
Israeli troops and police raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex early Tuesday and forcefully dispersed Palestinian worshipers and protesters ahead of the Knesset debate on a plan to annex the mosque. Witnesses told Ma’an that Israeli forces fired rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades at Muslim worshipers while protesters hurled stones.
Several worshipers were hurt as a result of the pepper spray and others were hit directly by rubber-coated bullets, witnesses said. They added that Israeli intelligence agents stormed the Al-Aqsa complex through the Moroccan Gate and the Chain Gate and blockaded the prayer hall, closing its gates with chains. Around 50 Palestinians had spent the night inside the complex in protest of an Israeli Knesset debate, scheduled for Tuesday, over a plan to place the holy site under full Israeli jurisdiction.
Due to the sensitive nature of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Israel maintains a compromise with the Islamic trust that controls the compound — overseen by Jordan — to restrict the area for Muslim prayers. Israeli occupation forces, however, regularly escort Jewish visitors to the site, often leading to tension with Palestinians.
The compound, which sits just above the Western Wall plaza, houses both the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque and is the third holiest site in Islam. It is also venerated as Judaism’s most holy place as it sits where Jews believe the First and Second Temples once stood. The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. According to mainstream Jewish religious leaders, Jews are forbidden from entering for fear they would profane the “Holy of Holies,” or the inner sanctum of the Second Temple. Al-Aqsa is located in East Jerusalem, a part of the internationally recognized Palestinian territories that have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.
