JERUSALEM: Five influential Israeli rabbis condemned on Wednesday Jewish prayers at annexed east Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, saying the holy site remains “strictly forbidden” to Jews after a visit by a far-right minister.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir drew global condemnation when he and about 3,000 other Jewish worshippers defied on Tuesday a longstanding ban on non-Muslim prayer at the site, known to Jews as Temple Mount.
The compound, Islam’s third holiest site, has become a symbol of Palestinian national identity. It is also Judaism’s holiest place, revered as the site of the ancient temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
“These are thugs in religious garb who only inflame tensions,“ Rabbi David Cohen, a member of a policy-making body linked to one of two ultra-Orthodox parties in Israel’s ruling coalition, said in a joint video statement.
Four other leading rabbis followed by many Orthodox Jews made similar comments.
“It is strictly forbidden to enter the Temple Mount,“ said Avigdor Nebenzahl, rabbi of the Old City of Jerusalem.
The prohibition on religious grounds, based on the risk of committing sacrilege by treading on the ancient sanctuary’s Holy of Holies, has been questioned by some rabbis from the religious Zionist movement followed by Ben Gvir.
On Tuesday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also criticised Ben Gvir’s visit to the holy site, saying it was a “deviation from the status quo”.
Under the convention, established after Israel seized east Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the United Nations, non-Muslims can visit the compound at fixed times but cannot pray or display religious symbols.
In recent years, the restrictions have been increasingly flouted by hardline religious nationalists like Ben Gvir, prompting sometimes violent reactions from Palestinians.
A former Israeli chief rabbi, Yitzhak Yosef, said those who prayed at the compound “do not represent the Jewish people”.
“I call upon the nations of the world, do not view these government ministers as representatives of the Jewish people,“ he said.
“They do not represent the Jewish people. The vast majority of Jews in Israel and around the world do not ascend the Temple Mount.”
Tuesday’s visit came at a tense time more than 10 months into the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with renewed efforts toward a ceasefire and as Israel braced for threatened attacks from Iran and its regional allies.
Muslim nations, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations were among those who sharply criticised Ben Gvir’s actions.
The far-right minister released a video statement, which he filmed inside the compound himself, renewing his opposition to any truce in the war in Gaza.
