‘Al-Aqsa is a detonator’: six-decade agreement on prayer at Jerusalem holy site collapses | Israel
A sixty-year-old agreement governing Muslim and Jewish prayers at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site is “collapsed” under pressure from Jewish extremists backed by the Israeli government, experts have warned.
A series of arrests of Muslim care staff, an entry ban on hundreds of Muslims and increasing attacks by radical Jewish groups have culminated this week in the arrest of the imam of Al-Aqsa Mosque and a raid by Israeli police during evening prayers on the first night of Ramadan.
The actions of the Jerusalem police and the Shin Bet internal security force, both now under far-right leadership, represent a break with the status quo agreement dating back to the aftermath of the 1967 war; The agreement stipulates that he will be allowed to pray at the holy site around the mosque known to Muslims as Al-Haram al-Sharif, which includes the seventh-century Dome of the Rock shrine. For the Jews, this is the Temple Mount, site of the first temple and the second temple, dating from the 10th century BC, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
Changes to the status quo have historically demonstrated the potential to ignite unrest and conflict in Jerusalem and the Palestinian-occupied territories that will reverberate around the world. The visit of then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon in 2000 sparked the second Palestinian intifada, which lasted five years, and Hamas called its attack on Israel in October 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis, the Al-Aqsa Flood and triggered the Gaza war, claiming that it was provoked by Israel’s violations in the Jerusalem mosque.
“Al-Aqsa is a detonator,” said Daniel Seidemann, a Jerusalem lawyer who regularly advises Israeli, Palestinian and foreign governments on legal and historical issues in the city. “It usually revolves around the same thing; a real or perceived threat to the integrity of the sanctuary. That’s what we’re witnessing. There have been frequent provocations during Ramadan, but things have now become exponentially more sensitive. The West Bank is a firebox.”
Tensions have steadily increased around Al-Aqsa Mosque as far-right Israelis have seized key security positions. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who had eight criminal convictions before taking office for supporting a terrorist organization and promoting racism, among other charges, said he wanted to raise the Israeli flag on the campus and build a synagogue there.
Ben-Gvir made provocative visits to Al-Aqsa Mosque last year and supported a series of unilateral changes to the status quo that would allow Jews to pray and sing. In January, he appointed his ideological ally, Major General Avshalom Peled, as Jerusalem police chief and, with the reported support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, made even more flagrant violations by allowing Jews to move printed prayer pages to the site.
“The status quo has collapsed because prayers are being held on a daily basis,” Seidemann said. “In the past, the police were very strict in preventing any provocation… but these measures are a sign of ‘we are in control here, get used to it or get out of the way’.”
As we approach Ramadan this year, the Quds Foundation, the Jordanian-appointed foundation tasked with managing Al-Aqsa Mosque as part of the status quo agreement, has come under increasing pressure. Foundation sources said this week that Shin Bet placed some 17 staff under administrative detention (detention without charge) and at least 42 staff were banned from entering the site.
They said six Trust offices had been ransacked in recent weeks and staff were prevented from refitting doors or carrying out other repairs. The foundation was prevented from setting up sun and rain shelters or temporary clinics for worshipers. Officials claim they were even prevented from bringing toilet paper to the site.
The cumulative effect of this is to strain the Foundation’s ability to cater to the 10,000 Muslims expected to come to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan, officials said.
The Palestinian-administered Jerusalem governor’s office gave different figures: 25 Foundation staff were banned and four were detained. Neither the Jerusalem police nor the Shin Bet responded to requests for comment on the allegations.
In the first week of Ramadan, the police made a unilateral change to the status quo, increasing the morning visiting hours for Jews and tourists from three to five. On Monday, the imam of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Mohammed al-Abbasi, was detained in the mosque courtyard, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa, and social media posts showed police raiding the mosque again on Tuesday evening during the first night prayer of Ramadan.
“There are many elements that make this Ramadan particularly dangerous,” said Amjad Iraq, senior Israel/Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group. “Last year was relatively uneventful, but this year there is a combination of factors on the Israeli and Palestinian sides that may encourage Temple Mount activists to try and create new changes.”
“While in the past the Israeli government may have felt obliged to engage with regional powers, today it cares much less about what they say and think,” Iraq added.
“Impunity is running rampant… The Israelis have been able to achieve so much in Gaza and the West Bank outside the constraints they think exist politically, militarily and diplomatically. So why do they feel bound by international opinion?”
