Minister prays on Temple Mount, lauds Ben Gvir’s ‘revolution’ at flashpoint holy site

Praying at the Temple Mount, Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party urges the public to visit the contested Jerusalem holy site in order to see the “revolution” led there by party leader National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

During a visit to the site ahead of Jerusalem Day, which begins tomorrow evening, the minister says that he visited “to give thanks for the miracles and to pray for the people of Israel, for IDF soldiers, and for the recovery of all the wounded.”

“I call upon all the people of Israel to ascend the Temple Mount and see with their own eyes the revolution led by Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on the mount. Jews no longer walk around the mount like thieves and no longer need to hide. It is moving every single time to see many Jews praying and prostrating on the Temple Mount, the holiest site for the Jewish people,” he says.

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City is the holiest place in Judaism, as the site of the two biblical temples. Known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, it is home to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam.

Jews are not officially allowed to pray at the Temple Mount under an arrangement known as the status quo, but the Israel Police, which comes under the purview of Ben Gvir’s ministry, has increasingly tolerated 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 renewed conflict over the site could pose a risk to national security.

Ben Gvir has also rebuffed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated insistence that the decades-old status quo remains in force.

In January, police allowed Jewish worshipers to ascend the Temple Mount with printed prayer sheets, in a further challenge to regulations barring non-Muslim prayer.