STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT-Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Monday that restrictions imposed by Israel on Muslim worshippers’ access to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan are pushing the situation towards an “explosion”.
According to Reuters, quoting remarks made on state media, Safadi said the Hashemite Kingdom, which has custodianship of the holy site, rejected Israel’s announced move to limit access during Ramadan, citing security needs while its military offensive against the Palesitnians in Gaza is still raging.
“We warn that desecrating the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque is playing with fire,” said Safadi in a joint news conference with the Vatican’s Foreign Minister Archbishop Paul Gallagher.
The compound is the third holiest shrine in Islam. It is also the site of the most sacred place for Jews, who call it the Temple Mount, and it has long been a flashpoint for trouble.
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Jordan echoes the Palestinian view that such restrictions on Muslim worshippers, already facing attacks by illegal Jewish settlers across the occupied West Bank, are an attack on freedom of worship.
After hard-right Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said recently that he wanted tougher restrictions on Muslims entering Al-Aqsa Mosque, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the numbers admitted would be similar to last year.
“Not allowing worshippers to perform their religious duties and their rituals in this holy month and restricting freedom to enter Al-Aqsa Mosque, all of that pushes towards an explosive situation which is what we are warning about,” added Safadi.
Israel is also risking wider violence in the Israeli occupied West Bank by what Safadi said were unilateral Israeli measures to change the status quo, citing accelerated Jewish settlement building on Palestinian land and what he termed as stepped-up “terror attacks” by armed settlers on Palestinian villagers. “The West Bank is boiling,” he added.
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The Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory, including occupied East Jerusalem, has since the start of the Israeli war in Gaza last October, seen a surge of confrontations, with around 400 Palestinians killed by security forces or Jewish settlers. Virtually all UN member states view as illegal the settlements that Israel has built on land it captured in the 1967 Six Day War.
The holy month of Ramadan comes at a time when Palestinians in Gaza are dying of hunger with Israel using food as a weapon of war, Safadi pointed out. “Ramadan comes with Gaza bombed by Israel and women unable to find food for their children and five months that have passed with the world failing to preserve human dignity.”
Israel’s relentless military offensive in Gaza has caused increasing alarm across the world as the growing risk of famine threatens to add to a death toll that has already passed 31,000. Israel denies it is responsible for the wider hunger or waging war on civilians.
