{"id":1788,"date":"2023-02-02T20:47:07","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T19:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/?p=1788"},"modified":"2025-06-11T10:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T08:01:14","slug":"who-may-enter-the-temple-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/who-may-enter-the-temple-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Who may enter the Temple Site?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Who may enter the Temple Site?<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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At the start of the year, Israel\u2019s new Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Palestinians and Arab world saw this as a provocation. Throughout history Jews have been barred for long periods from visiting holy sites in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A model of Herod\u2019s Temple at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Photo: Gerd Eichmann<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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B<\/span>en-Gvir advocates changing the status quo at the Temple Mount, where Muslims today are allowed to pray and enter without restriction. Jews can only visit for limited hours through a single gate and follow a predetermined route, escorted by police. This informal agreement was reached between Israel and Jordan after the 1967 Six-Day War. It was based on an Ottoman-era arrangement in which the Jordanian-run Jerusalem Islamic Waqf is responsible for managing the area and setting rules of conduct, while Israel is in charge of security and overall accessibility.<\/p>\n

Jews and non-Muslims can therefore visit the area but are not allowed to pray there. Jordan described Ben-Gvir\u2019s visit, which was made possible thanks to heavy police coverage, as a \u201cstorm\u201d. The US also criticized the visit and the UN Security Council met at the request of the United Arab Emirates and China to discuss the issue.<\/p>\n

During last year\u2019s Jewish Passover holiday, Arabs tried to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and attempts by Israeli police to make room for them led to violent riots. Arab rioters set off fireworks and threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at security forces. Israel\u2019s police announced in late April that the Temple Mount will be closed to Jewish visitors \u201cuntil further notice\u201d due to clashes between Arabs and Israeli security forces.<\/p>\n

In September 2000, the then foreign minister, Ariel Sharon, made a high-profile visit to the Temple Mount and a Palestinian uprising was started in response \u2014 the Second Intifada, which brought with it a wave of horrific suicide attacks against Israeli civilians. One example, the Pesach massacre at the Park Hotel in Netanya on 27 March 2002 resulted in thirty civilians dead and 140 injured.<\/p>\n

Over 700\u00a0Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians during the second intifada, which also saw the start of\u00a0shooting, stone throwing, and rocket attacks\u00a0from Gaza. About 10,000 missiles were fired at civilian targets in Israel in the years 2000\u20132008. Over 4,000 Palestinians were killed during the second intifada, over half of them soldiers or perpetrators of violence. More than 500 Palestinians were killed by their own people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tunnel opening sparked riots<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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In 1996, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu decided to open a tunnel next to the Western Wall that ended in the Arab Quarter. The decision led to several days of violent Palestinian rioting and the UN Security Council meeting immediately to discuss the events. US President Bill Clinton also urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to close the entrance.
\nThe UN Security Council resolution was adopted by 14 votes to 0 (the US abstained). It called on Israel to \u201cimmediately cease and desist from any actions that have resulted in the worsening of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Muslim claims to Jerusalem often go back to the fact that Muslim rulers once had control over the area. Turkey\u2019s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suggested in late 2020 that Jerusalem belongs to Turkey, citing the Ottoman Empire\u2019s control of the city until 1917.
\n\u201cIn this city, which we had to leave, in tears, during the First World War, it is still possible to come across traces of the Ottoman resistance. So, Jerusalem is our city, a city from us,\u201d Erdogan told Turkish lawmakers during a political speech in Ankara.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Suleiman the Great<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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In his speech in the Turkish parliament, Erdogan lamented the fate of Jerusalem and the Palestinians:
\n\u201cThe issue of Jerusalem is not an ordinary geopolitical problem for us. First of all, the current physical appearance of the Old City, which is the heart of Jerusalem, was built by Suleiman the Great, with its walls, bazaars and many buildings. Our forefathers showed their respect for centuries by holding the city in high esteem,\u201d Erdogan said, claiming that the Palestinian people had lived in Jerusalem \u201cfor thousands of years\u201d.<\/p>\n

In late 2021, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution by a vote of 129-11 that denied Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and used only its Muslim name al-Haram al-Sharif.
\nThe US, which opposed the text, said the omission of an inclusive terminology for the temple site was of \u201creal and serious concern\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who may enter the Temple Site? At the start of the year, Israel\u2019s new Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The Palestinians and Arab world saw this as a provocation. Throughout history Jews have been barred for long periods from visiting holy sites in Jerusalem. A model of Herod\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-modern-israel"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1788"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3616,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1788\/revisions\/3616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}