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The United States says that Israel and Jordan have agreed on steps, including 24-hour video surveillance, to try and help end weeks of violence over a Jerusalem site holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians. Protests against Israel’s ongoing occupation broke out last month amid growing unrest triggered by Israeli incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound — the third holiest site for Muslims — and have taken place across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza and in Palestinian communities in Israel.
Speaking in Amman after meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah on Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Israel had embraced “an excellent suggestion” by the king for round-the-clock monitoring of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
In 2013, Jordan and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas signed an agreement granting King Abdullah “custodianship of Jerusalem holy sites”, however, neither Jordan nor the Palestinian Authority has de facto control over the sites. According to a 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, Israel “respects the special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem”.
But the treaty stops short of giving Jordan any legal, political or religious authority over Islamic holy shrines in Jerusalem.
Kerry said Israel had also given assurances it had no intention of changing the status quo at the compound in occupied East Jerusalem, home to Al-Aqsa Mosque and another Islamic icon, the Dome of the Rock. Jews perform religious rites at the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known as the Temple Mount in Judaism.
In a detailed statement, Netanyahu said Israel recognised “the importance of the Temple Mount to peoples of all three monotheistic faiths — and reaffirms its commitment to upholding unchanged the status quo of the Temple Mount, in word and in practise”. He echoed Kerry’s statement that Israel would enforce its long-standing policy under which Muslims may pray at the site, but Jews, Christians and members of other faiths may only visit, but not pray, and that Israel had no intention of dividing up the compound. — AFP
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