Police said to allow group of 180 Jews onto Temple Mount, further testing norms

Police on Tuesday reportedly allowed a group of roughly 180 Jews to ascend Jerusalem’s Temple Mount on Tuesday in the latest apparent departure from the fragile, yet unwritten status quo that governs the flashpoint holy site.

That status quo has long seen police cap such visits at 30, with non-Muslim visitors being banned from praying on the site that also houses the al-Aqsa Mosque and that is known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif.

Tuesday’s apparent exception came amid a years-long de facto loosening of the status quo, particularly since ultra-nationalist lawmaker Itamar Ben Gvir became the minister overseeing the police in December 2022. Ben Gvir says he has overseen an overhaul of policy at the Temple Mount and that Jews are now allowed to pray there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that is the case, amid backlash from countries in the region.

The mount is the holiest place in Judaism as the site of the two biblical temples, home to the third holiest shrine in Islam, and a flashpoint for religious tensions.

Since the Saturday night start of the weeklong Passover holiday, 3,076 Jews have ascended the Temple Mount, with most doing so on Tuesday, Haaretz reported, citing the Temple Mount Administration, a Jewish non-governmental organization that tracks and backs Jewish visits to the site.

Police told Haaretz that they “secured visits to the Temple Mount as usual, in accordance with visitation rules and the number of visitors.

“The number of people allowed in each group is determined based on various circumstances, including the overall number of visitors at the site and, in particular, police’s ability to secure and maintain public order for each group,” police said.

It was not clear from the Haaretz report whether the 180-strong Jewish group prayed at the site, but a video posted to X on Tuesday by far-right journalist Yinon Magal showed a group performing the priestly blessing on the mount.

ברכת כהנים במוסף של חג על הר הבית pic.twitter.com/7bfu1sxO6d

— ינון מגל (@YinonMagal) April 15, 2025

Additionally, several Jewish activists have been arrested in recent days — as happens every year — for trying to smuggle a goat or a lamb to the site to perform the Passover sacrifice, as was done before the ancient Jewish temple was destroyed 2,000 years ago.

The Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday rejected a request to extend the remand of two such activists, who were caught on Monday with a lamb near the Old City’s Jaffa Gate.

Ben Gvir visited nearby Dung Gate and the Western Wall Plaza on Tuesday, he did not visit the Temple Mount itself, according to the newspaper.

הר הבית לב האומה היהודית! pic.twitter.com/1CjVFoNn0s

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While the status quo bars Jewish worship, Jews are allowed to visit the Temple Mount at specified times.

The dominant position in Orthodox Judaism has long been to forbid any entry to the Temple Mount, for ritual reasons related to the site’s holiness. As such, ultra-Orthodox rabbis and elected officials have been vociferously opposed to the recent permissive attitude on the mount, calling it a “desecration” that causes “unnecessary incitement in the Muslim world.”

Also Tuesday, tens of thousands of people flocked to the Western Wall — which stands just beside the Temple Mount, as part of its historic retaining wall — for Passover services, including the performance of the priestly blessing.

Freed hostage Eliya Cohen was among those delivering the blessing this year. He was released from Hamas captivity in February, after 505 days, as part of a hostage, prisoner release, and ceasefire deal that has since collapsed. Fifty-nine hostages remain in Gaza, of whom 24 are believed to be alive and 35 are confirmed dead by the Israel Defense Forces.