After National Security Minister’s visits to Jerusalem holy site and calls to permit Jewish prayer spark diplomatic pushback, Netanyahu bars government ministers from making unapproved visits to Temple Mount.
By World Israel News Staff
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned ministers in his government Sunday not to ascend the Temple Mount without explicit approval from his office, after a senior minister drew criticism for his calls to change the religious status quo on the holy site.
During a security cabinet meeting Sunday evening, Netanyahu announced that his government will not pursue changes to the status quo on the Temple Mount, and reiterated his previous demand that ministers not visit the holy site without permission from his office.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu, last night, at the start of the Security Cabinet meeting, declared that on the issue of the Temple Mount there is no change in the status quo, nor will there be,” the Prime Minister’s Office said Monday morning.
“The Prime Minister repeated his directive that Government ministers not visit the Temple Mount without his approval in advance via his Military Secretary.”
Netanyahu’s announcement at Sunday’s security cabinet meeting came just hours after a Coalition MK, Yitzhak Kroizer, visited the Temple Mount.
Kroizer, the son of Rabbi Yehuda Kroizer – dean of a yeshiva founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane and a staunch advocate of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount – is a member of the Otzma Yehudit faction in the Knesset.
The party’s chairman, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, has repeatedly ascended the mount since taking office in December 2022.
During a visit on the Tisha B’Av fast last month, Ben-Gvir and a fellow Otzma Yehudit minister, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, were filmed praying on the Temple Mount, defying orders by Netanyahu that the religious status quo on the mount be maintained.
The religious site, the holiest site to Jews and the third holiest to Muslims, is administered by the Waqf, a Jordanian Islamic trust which prohibits prayer by non-Muslims and bars the entry of any non-Islamic religious items.
Despite Netanyahu’s instructions, a member of his Likud party, MK Amit Halevi, also visited the Temple Mount on Tisha B’Av last month.
The visits, along with Ben-Gvir’s proclamations that Jewish prayer is now permitted on the Temple Mount, drew criticism from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United States State Department, which all called to preserve the status quo.