From the Liveblog of
Monday, May 26, 2025
Ben Gvir says Jewish prayer, including full prostration, permitted at flashpoint Temple Mount
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir declares that Jewish prayer, including full prostration, is allowed on the Temple Mount as he pays a Jerusalem Day visit to the contested holy site.
Flanked by Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf and MK Yitzhak Kroizer, both members of his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, Ben Gvir says that “many Jews are flooding the Temple Mount.”
“Today, thank God, it is possible to pray on the Temple Mount, to bow down on the Temple Mount – we thank God for that,” the far-right minister declares — adding that he and his colleagues had come to “pray for the safety of the hostages” and “for victory in the war.”
A photo apparently shows Kroizer prostrated on the Mount alongside other Jews as a police officers look on.
Meanwhile, MK Zvi Sukkot, of the far-right Religious Zionism party, was filmed walking across the holy site with an Israeli flag, repeatedly declaring “the Temple Mount is in our hands.”
ח"כ סוכות השתחווה והניף דגל ישראל בהר הבית: "הר הבית בידינו" pic.twitter.com/yD1SucGtB2
— חזקי ברוך (@HezkeiB) May 26, 2025
Ben Gvir has long rebuffed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated insistence that the decades-old status quo, which bans Jewish prayer on the site, remains in force.
The Prime Minister’s Office says it is looking into the matter.
Ben Gvir says he also prayed for the success of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious pick to head the Shin Bet security agency, Maj. Gen. David Zini.
“And I pray for the success of the new head of the Shin Bet: that he will pursue our enemies, that he will mow down our enemies, as he has done throughout his years – to be professional, and to distinguish between an enemy and a friend: those who love are embraced, and enemies are mowed down,” he says.
Ben Gvir last visited the Temple Mount in early April, eliciting criticism from the coalition’s ultra-Orthodox members as Haredim believe it is forbidden to tread in the holy site due to its sanctity.
Jews are not officially allowed to pray at the Temple Mount, but the Israel Police, which comes under the purview of Ben Gvir’s ministry, has increasingly tolerated limited prayer there.
Ben Gvir has said repeatedly that his policy is to allow Jewish prayer there, drawing rebukes from US and international officials, as well as warnings from the security establishment that conflict over the site poses a risk to national security.
The Times of Israel Community.