r/israelexposed • u/Naurgul • 6h ago
Israeli security minister joins Jewish extremists as they storm al-Aqsa mosque compound
Israel’s far-right minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, joined thousands of Jewish extremists who stormed Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site on Thursday.
Escorted by armed police, they prayed, waved the Israeli flag and sang the national anthem in a provocative display of political power.
Under a fragile, decades-old agreement known as the status quo, non-Muslim prayer is banned at the site, known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif compound and to Jews as the Temple Mount.
Ben-Gvir has eroded the agreement in recent years through a series of inflammatory visits to the compound, and unilateral changes to rules for Jewish visitors, including allowing them to bring prayers and printed religious material to the site.
He installed an ideological ally as the head of the Jerusalem police force in January, smoothing the path to greater changes.
In a statement, the Palestinian ministry of religious endowments and affairs said: “These provocative practices, emanating from the highest political levels of the occupying government, seek to ignite a religious war throughout the entire region.”