Arab journalist barred from Western Wall

‘No entry to Arabs,’ worker at site tells Nader Bagdasar; Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch apologizes, suspends employee

An Arab Israeli reporter for Channel 10 News was barred from entering the Western Wall plaza on Tuesday, with an employee at the site shouting “no entry to Arabs.”

Nader Bagdasar had arrived at the Western Wall to cover the memorial for slain teenager Hallel Ariel, 13, on the Temple Mount.

However, an employee of the Western Wall rabbi refused to let Bagdasar in, while cursing him and saying Arabs were not allowed to enter, according to the TV station.

Contacted by Channel 10, the Western Wall rabbi’s office threatened to bar other reporters from the TV channel in the future should they publicize the story.

But following the report, the office of Western Wall rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch apologized and suspended the worker, who was identified only as Gavriel.

Likud Knesset Member Yehuda Glick (L), Jerusalem Councillor Arieh King (2L), Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (3L) and hundreds of supporters arrive to visit the Temple Mount in memory of Hallel Yaffa Ariel in Jerusalem's Old City, July 12, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) — Likud Knesset Member Yehuda Glick (L), Jerusalem Councillor Arieh King (2L), Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (3L) and hundreds of supporters arrive to visit the Temple Mount in memory of Hallel Yaffa Ariel in Jerusalem’s Old City, July 12, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Police permitted the family members of Ariel and dozens of friends and supporters to enter the Temple Mount in small groups on Tuesday morning. In accordance with the regulations at the site, they were forbidden to pray, and Knesset members — including Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, a family member; and Yehuda Glick — were not permitted entry. Ariel and Glick, along with hundreds of supporters, waited at the Western Wall plaza, where they were later joined by the Ariel family after their Temple Mount visit.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lights the Hanukia together with Rabbi of the Western Wall Shmuel Rabinovitch, at the Western Wall on the second night of the Jewish holiday of Hannuka. November 28, 2013. (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/Pool/Flash90)

The assembled group symbolically declared in accordance with the expressed of the family that the Mughrabi Gate, used by non-Muslims to enter the Mount, had been renamed Hallel Gate.

Hallel Ariel was stabbed to death on the morning of June 30 as she slept in her bed in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba by a 17-year-old Palestinian assailant from a nearby village. Civilian guards shot and killed the attacker. A second Israeli man who was wounded by friendly fire in the attack was discharged from the hospital on Monday.