Israel Closes Temple Mount to Non-Muslims
JERUSALEM, Israel – Israel Police closed the Temple Mount to non-Muslims Tuesday morning, possibly until after Ramadan, which ends next week. The decision follows a recent upsurge in Arab rioting there.
The latest bout of rioting follows the same basic pattern. Arab youths stockpile rocks, incendiary devices and other riot paraphernalia in the al-Aksa Mosque. When the time is right, they come outside and begin pummeling police officers and sometimes visitors. Often they hassle non-Muslim visitors, shouting Allah is greater (Allahu akbar), attempting to intimidate and make them feel unwelcome.
"Muslim youths, some of them masked, began to throw at the [security] forces stones [and fireworks] they had gathered in advance and piled up inside al-Aksa Mosque," the police said in a statement Monday. They also said they would deal aggressively with attempts to disturb the peace.
On Monday, a 73-year-old woman at the Western Wall below was injured by a rock thrown from the mount. She was treated at the scene and then transported to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital for further medical attention.
Muslims believe their prophet, Mohammed, ascended to heaven on his horse from the Temple Mount, which they call the Noble Sanctuary. They say there's an unspoken agreement in place not to allow non-Muslims on the site during the last 10 days of Ramadan, considered the most solemn days of the month. But there have been plenty of disturbances at other times, too.
The Israeli government has always tried to accommodate the Muslim population during Ramadan, making it easier to visit the site for Friday prayers and to pay holiday calls to relatives in other parts of the country. Since Ramadan began three weeks ago, tens of thousands of Muslims have attended Friday prayers at the site.
The site is especially important to Jews and also to Christians.
The First and Second Jewish Temples stood on the Temple Mount, which makes visits problematic for ultra-Orthodox Jews. They're opposed to Jewish visitors ascending the mount in part because the location of the Holy of Holies is unknown and therefore could be unintentionally desecrated.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat will fire the ancient Ramadan canon on Tuesday evening, marking the end of day 23 of the fast.
The mayor will be joined by the Haj Yahya Sandouka family, which has been responsible for firing the canon since the end of the Ottoman occupation in 1922. During Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Islam's holiest month, the canon is fired twice daily, at sunrise and sunset, to mark the beginning and end of the daily fast.
