Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited a sensitive Jerusalem holy site on Sunday at a time of heightened tensions with the Palestinians.
“I am happy to come up to the Temple Mount, the most important place for the Israeli people,” Ben-Gvir said in a statement following the visit. He praised the police presence at the site, saying it “proves who is in charge in Jerusalem.”
It’s his second known visit since becoming a member of Israel’s most right-leaning government ever.
The visit by the extremist minister comes days after Israelis marked Jerusalem Day, which celebrates Israel’s capturing of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Flag-waving nationalists marched through the main Palestinian thoroughfare in Jerusalem’s Old City, some singing racist anti-Arab chants, while hundreds of Jews visited the sensitive hilltop shrine.
The hilltop site is the holiest in Judaism, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and home to the ancient biblical Temples. Today, it houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Since Israel captured the site in 1967, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there.
Ben-Gvir, along with a growing movement of activists, has long called for greater Jewish access to the holy site.
Palestinians consider the mosque a national symbol and view such visits as provocative and as a potential precursor to Israel seizing control over the compound. Most rabbis forbid Jews from praying at the site, but there has been a growing movement in recent years of Jews who support worship there.
Violence between Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank has spiked in the last year, as Israel launched near-nightly raids in response to a spate of Palestinian attacks.
More than 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the spring of 2022. About 50 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
