Killing of Hamas operative Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut fits pattern of Israeli operations in Lebanon

Killing of Hamas operative Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut fits pattern of Israeli operations in Lebanon
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Israeli soldiers in armored vehicles passing through a village in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, during Operation Peace for the Galilee in 1982 and the earlier Litani Operation in 1978 are warnings from history of the potential for escalation. (Getty Images/AFP)
Killing of Hamas operative Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut fits pattern of Israeli operations in Lebanon
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Picture dated 20 August 1982 of a man sitting on rubbles in a desolated area of west Beirut. (AFP/File)
Killing of Hamas operative Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut fits pattern of Israeli operations in Lebanon
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A photo dated August 2, 1982, of Israeli shelling on West Beirut. (AFP/File)
Killing of Hamas operative Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut fits pattern of Israeli operations in Lebanon
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Rescuers carry a young victim of a stretcher on April 18, 1996 after an Israeli warplane bombed a house sheltering a family of eleven in the southern town of Nabatiyeh, killing a mother and her eight children.(AFP/File)
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Updated 04 January 2024
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Killing of Hamas operative Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut fits pattern of Israeli operations in Lebanon

Killing of Hamas operative Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut fits pattern of Israeli operations in Lebanon
  • Israel has a long history of attacks across the region, targeting members of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s IRGC
  • Analysts fear Tuesday’s targeted killing could lead to further attacks and cause the conflict in Gaza to escalate

LONDON: The suspected targeted strike by Israel on senior Hamas operative Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut’s southern suburbs this week was an unexpected escalation in the regional conflict, especially given that it happened in a Hezbollah stronghold.

The attack is not without precedent, however. Israel has a long history of carrying out operations and assassinations around the globe, most notably through its elite Mossad intelligence unit that has long hunted Nazis and, more recently, those it deems a threat to Israel’s security.

Countless such operations have taken place in Lebanon, the UAE, Iran and elsewhere in recent years, with notable members of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted and killed.

If what’s past is prologue, then Tuesday night’s precision strike on Al-Arouri and his squad could open the floodgates for additional attacks that might extend far beyond the borders of Gaza, where Israel has been waging a war against Hamas since Oct. 7.




Saleh Al-Aruri, the assassinated deputy chief of Hamas, is seen at work at an office in Beirut in this picture release by the Palestinian movement on January 3, 2024.(Hamas media office via AFP)

“These targeted operations, at least from literature we have from Israeli scholarship and the information that we have, are very important because they are not simply an attempt by the prime minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) to leverage his political chips, so to speak, but rather this is a kind of a process which brings together politics and military and intelligence,” Makram Rabah, a political analyst and assistant professor of history at the American University of Beirut, told Arab News.

Israel’s history of attacks and shadow warfare inside Lebanon is especially pertinent given the country’s significance in the current crisis, both on the military and political levels.

“The fact that Lebanon has always been an arena, let’s say a self-cooperating arena, makes this targeted hit all the more important and this will simply lead to more conflict,” said Rabah.

“This is why one has to understand that people from 1975 until 1982 — until the actual invasion, the Israeli full-scale invasion — the Israelis were trying to look at a potential limited incursion into Lebanon but it ended up being a full-scale military invasion, which ended by expanding the Palestine Liberation Organization.”

Even before the 1975 civil war in Lebanon and the Israeli invasion of the south of the country, Israel had mounted operations within the borders of its northern neighbor. The largest such incident was in 1968, when an Israeli airliner was attacked at Athens airport by the PLO, which was operating out of Lebanon.

In response, eight Israeli helicopters carried out a raid on Beirut International Airport and destroyed 13 civilian aircraft belonging to Arab airlines, as well as causing damage to the runway and hangars.




In this picture taken on August 39, 1982, the late Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman Yasser Arafat (C-wearing keffieh) is seen in Beirut with Lebanese Prime Minister Shafiq al-Wazzan (C), Palestinian leader Abu Iyad (2nd-R) and behind him, Druze warlord Walid Jumblatt, surrounded by heavy security, as he leaves Israeli-occupied Beirut for Tunis. (AFP/File)

After the 1967 war, the PLO began conducting raids from Lebanon into Israel, which led to retaliation in villages along the border.

In 1975, Lebanon descended into 15 years of civil war, which led to its land being used as a launch pad for PLO attacks on Israel. Three years into this civil war, members of the PLO hijacked a bus on Israel’s Coastal Highway, killing 38 passengers.

In retaliation, Israel launched Operation Litani on March 14, 1978, invading southern Lebanon as far as the Litani River. The offensive led to the creation of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, a peacekeeping mission that was established after the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the south.




A Palestinian woman cries in desperation as she returns home to find their village in Tebnin, Lebanon, devastated following intense Israeli shelling in 1996. (AFP/Getty Images)

But Israeli forces returned to southern Lebanon in 1982, following the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to the UK.

Under the pretext of protecting Israeli civilians by pushing members of Palestinian groups in southern Lebanon 40 kilometers to the north, Israel, supported by its ally the State of Free Lebanon, an unrecognized separatist entity in the country’s southernmost territory, invaded southern Lebanon.

Although the PLO, headquartered at the time in western Beirut, withdrew from Lebanon on Sept. 1, the Israeli military expanded its operations for three months until it reached the capital, Beirut.

During this invasion, dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee, one of the worst massacres of the Lebanese civil war took place. The Israeli army besieged the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, near Beirut, providing cover for Lebanese Forces, whose militia attacked the camps and killed about 3,500 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians.




A Palestinian woman weeps 20 September 1982 over the bodies of their relatives killed September 17, 1982, in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut, Lebanon. (SANA / AFP)

It remains unclear whether an escalation of the current conflict in Gaza into a regional conflict involving Lebanon and Hezbollah might result in a repeat of such violence.

“Trying to compare or say that something like Sabra and Shatila would reoccur is very difficult to say because of many reasons,” said Rabah.

“First of all, there’s the complicity of the Lebanese Forces, or a faction of Lebanese Forces, which played an important role in Sabra and Shatila. And, more importantly, we had (former Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon.

“At the moment, we don’t have someone like him, at least from the generals who are running the show in Israel … (who lack) Sharon’s more criminal tendency.”


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While most of Israel’s operations in Lebanon were carried out under the pretext of eliminating Palestinian groups, several sought to destroy Hezbollah and other Lebanese groups.

In 1993, Israel launched Operation Accountability, also known as the Seven-Day War, after Hezbollah fighters killed at least five Israel Defense Force soldiers and fired 40 Katyusha rockets at Israel. Lebanese civilians bore the brunt of these exchanges, with Israeli strikes killing at least 118 people and wounding 500.

One of the bloodiest Israeli attacks on Lebanon in pursuit of Hezbollah was Operation Grapes of Wrath, in April 1996. The Israeli military carried out 600 air raids and fired about 25,000 shells into Lebanese territory.




Lebanese grieve as they bury their dead during a mass funeral for victims of Israel's "Operation Grapes of Wrath" in the Bekaa Valley town of Mashghara on April 19, 1996. (AFP/File)

The assaults included an attack on a UN compound near the village of Qana, where 800 Lebanese civilians had taken shelter. At least 106 Lebanese were killed and 116 wounded in what became known as the Qana Massacre.

An Amnesty International report pointed out that during the 1996 operation, the IDF carried out “unlawful attacks,” including strikes on an ambulance carrying civilians, a house in upper Nabatieh, and the attack on the UN compound.

The same report said that Hezbollah “unlawfully launched rocket attacks on populated areas in northern Israel, wounding many civilians.”




Hezbollah fighters mark the 11th anniversary of the end of the 2006 war with Israel, in the village of Khiam in southern Lebanon on August 13, 2017. (AFP/File)

In 2006, Israel invoked its right to self-defense against Hezbollah after an Israeli army border patrol was ambushed, resulting in the deaths of three IDF soldiers and the capture of two.

The Lebanese group demanded the release of Lebanese and Palestinian detainees in Israel in exchange for the two hostages. Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister at the time, blamed the Lebanese government for the Hezbollah raid and triggered a war that killed at least 1,191 Lebanese, wounded 2,209 and displaced more than 900,000.

The July 2006 war lasted 34 days. A ceasefire was agreed three days after the UN Security Council approved Resolution 1701 on Aug. 11.




Supporters watch as members of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah perform a re-enactment of an attack on an Israeli tank to mark the 11th anniversary of the end of the 2006 war with Israel, in the village of Khiam in southern Lebanon on August 13, 2017. (AFP/File)

No Israeli operation or targeted attack was known to have taken place in Beirut since them — until Tuesday night. For this reason, many observers fear existing tensions could rise, causing the conflict in Gaza to spill over into a regional war.

“I think the surgical hits are very much potent and more important,” said Rabah. “So far, with the Al-Arouri targeting, no civilian lives were hit despite the fact that it (took place in a) residential area.”

However, he added that the fact that it happened in the Lebanese capital, and a Hezbollah stronghold at that, leads him to believe the stakes are extremely high.

“I think if one is to look at these operations, I think they are more dangerous,” he added.

 


Northern Gaza at grave risk of Israeli atrocities of ‘the most serious nature,’ UN warns

Northern Gaza at grave risk of Israeli atrocities of ‘the most serious nature,’ UN warns
Updated 13 November 2024
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Northern Gaza at grave risk of Israeli atrocities of ‘the most serious nature,’ UN warns

Northern Gaza at grave risk of Israeli atrocities of ‘the most serious nature,’ UN warns
  • ‘Horrific possibility’ of famine cannot be separated from unrelenting Israeli attacks on the human rights of Palestinians, Security Council hears
  • Systematic destruction of Palestinian infrastructure is directly contributing to threat of starvation, human rights official tells council members

NEW YORK CITY: Not only are Israeli authorities seeking to clear northern Gaza of Palestinians by displacing them to the south of the territory, but their actions pose a grave risk of atrocities of “the most serious nature,” the UN warned on Tuesday. 

Ilze Brands Kehris, the organization’s assistant secretary-general for human rights, urged all states to assess their arms sales or transfers “with a view to ending such support if this risks serious violations of international law.”

Speaking during a meeting of the Security Council to discuss the growing risk of famine in Gaza, she described the humanitarian and human rights situation for Palestinians across the battered enclave as “catastrophic.”

The meeting followed an alert issued at the weekend by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Famine Review Committee, which said there was “a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip.” It called for the international community to act “in days, not weeks” to address this threat.

Figures verified by the UN Human Rights Office reveal that almost 70 percent of those killed in Gaza since the war began in October last year were children, mostly between the ages of 5 and 9 years old, or women. According to the Palestinian health ministry, the total death toll from the conflict stands at least 43,000 Palestinians, and more than 100,000 have been injured.

However, these figures are likely to be “a serious understatement,” Brands Kehris told the Security Council, because the bodies of many other victims are thought to be buried under rubble.

Nearly 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced, many of them repeatedly, including pregnant women, people with disabilities, the elderly and children, she said. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes on shelters and residential buildings continue to kill unconscionable numbers of civilians, she added: women, men, young and old.

“Attacks on so-called ‘safe zones’ prove that nowhere in Gaza is safe,” Brands Kehris said.

The destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure by the Israeli military — including facilities that enjoy protected status under international law, such as hospitals, schools and vital services such as including power supplies, water and sewage — is directly contributing to the risk of famine, she added.

In addition, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of medical personnel, civilian police officers, journalists and humanitarian aid workers, including more than 220 UN staff, she said, and thousands of Palestinians have been taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded, where they are held incommunicado.

“Meanwhile, there is constant and continued interference with the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance, which has fallen to some of the lowest levels in a year,” Brands Kehris added.

“The cumulative impact of more than a year of destruction in Gaza has taken an enormous toll. Basic services for Palestinians in Gaza, the fabric of society, have been decimated. Conditions of life, particularly in northern Gaza, are increasingly not fit for survival.

“This horrific possibility cannot be separated from the unrelenting attacks on the human rights of civilians there.”

Over the past five weeks, she said, Israeli strikes have resulted in massive civilian fatalities in northern Gaza, particularly among women, children, the elderly, the sick and people with disabilities, many of whom are reportedly “trapped by Israeli military restrictions and attacks on escape routes.”

She added: “The pattern and the frequency of these reported attacks suggest the systematic targeting of locations known, or which should have been known, as sheltering significant numbers of civilians, coupled with the continued use of weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas.

“The Israeli military has also conducted repeated attacks on the three major hospitals in the area and on other vital infrastructure, while unlawfully restricting the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance to northern Gaza.”

Brands Kehris echoed a call by the high commissioner for human rights for an end to the war, the release of Israeli hostages, and the urgent delivery and distribution of humanitarian aid to Gaza “by all routes.”

There must also be “due reckoning” over allegations of serious violations of international law, she said, overseen by “credible and impartial judicial authorities.”

She added: “In line with the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion and the General Assembly resolution, Israel must end its continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible, allowing the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination.”


Trump nominates hard-liner Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel

Trump nominates hard-liner Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel
Updated 13 November 2024
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Trump nominates hard-liner Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel

Trump nominates hard-liner Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel
  • Huckabee, 69, who ran twice for Republican Party presidential nomination, has traveled to Israel regularly since 1973
  • Israel’s FM Gideon Saar quickly offered congratulations to Huckabee

WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday he had nominated Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel under his incoming administration, putting a stalwart supporter of that country’s government in a key role.
“Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years,” Trump said in a statement, referring to the Christian pastor-turned-politician.
“He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar quickly offered his congratulations to Huckabee, who has in the past said there was “no such thing as an occupation” when it came to Palestinian territories.
“I look forward to working with you to strengthen the bond between our peoples,” Minister Saar posted to Huckabee on X. “As a longstanding friend of Israel and our eternal capital Jerusalem — I hope you will feel very much at home.”
Huckabee, 69, ran twice for the Republican Party presidential nomination, including in 2016 against eventual winner Trump, who Huckabee was quick to back after falling out of the race.
Huckabee, whose nomination requires confirmation by the US Senate, has traveled to Israel regularly since 1973, and has led numerous tours there.
In 2017, he was present in Maale Adumim for the expansion of one of Israel’s largest illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. In 2018, he also laid a brick at a new housing complex in Efrat settlement, strongly suggesting he was in support of Trump’s positions on Israel.
“There is no such thing as the West Bank — it’s Judea and Samaria,” Huckabee told CNN there at the time, using the Biblical terms for the area.
“There’s no such thing as a settlement; they’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation,” he added.
In December 2023 he visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where dozens of Israelis were killed in the October 7 cross-border attack by Hamas militants.
Huckabee was born in Hope, Arkansas, the same town that gave rise to Democrat Bill Clinton, who served as the state’s governor before he became president.
His daughter Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the current governor of Arkansas. She also served as Trump’s White House press secretary from 2017 to 2019.


Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch drones and missiles at US warships near the Red Sea but do no damage

Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch drones and missiles at US warships near the Red Sea but do no damage
Updated 12 November 2024
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Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch drones and missiles at US warships near the Red Sea but do no damage

Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch drones and missiles at US warships near the Red Sea but do no damage
  • Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said the Iranian-backed Houthis launched at least eight drones, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and three anti-ship cruise missiles
  • No one was wounded on board in the blasts, and the ship was continuing on its journey, the UKMTO added

DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi militants targeted two US Navy warships with multiple drones and missiles as they were traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, but the attacks were not successful, the Defense Department said Tuesday.
Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said the Iranian-backed Houthis launched at least eight drones, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and three anti-ship cruise missiles at the USS Stockdale and the USS Spruance, both Navy destroyers, on Monday. He said there was no damage and no one was injured.
The strait is a narrow waterway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which typically sees $1 trillion in goods pass through it a year. The militants have been targeting shipping through the strait for months over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon.
The Houthis have insisted that the attacks will continue as long as the wars go on, and the assaults already have halved shipping through the region. Meanwhile, a UN panel of experts now allege that the Houthis may be shaking down some shippers for about $180 million a month for safe passage through the area.
Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree in a prerecorded statement earlier Tuesday had claimed the militants attacked two American destroyers in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones.
There were also reports of a commercial ship being attacked. A vessel in the southern reaches of the Red Sea, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida, reported the attack, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.
No one was wounded on board in the blasts, and the ship was continuing on its journey, the UKMTO added.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the UKMTO report was directly linked to the attacks on the US destroyers, but similar incidents of Houthi fire coming near other ships have happened before.
The Houthis have targeted more than 90 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October 2023. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign, which also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well.
The militants maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
The Houthis have shot down multiple American MQ-9 Reaper drones as well.
The last Houthi maritime attack came Oct. 28 and targeted the Liberian-flagged bulk tanker Motaro. Before that, an Oct. 10 attack targeted the Liberian-flagged chemical tanker Olympic Spirit.
It’s unclear why the Houthis’ attacks have dropped, though they have launched multiple missiles toward Israel as well. On Oct. 17, the US military unleashed B-2 stealth bombers to target underground bunkers used by the militants. US airstrikes also have been targeting Houthi positions in recent days as well.
Meanwhile, a report by UN experts from October says “the Houthis allegedly collected illegal fees from a few shipping agencies to allow their ships to sail through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden without being attacked.” It put the money generated a month at around $180 million, though it stressed it hadn’t been able to corroborate the information provided by sources to the panel.
The Houthis haven’t directly responded to the allegation. However, the report did include two threatening emails the Houthis sent to shippers, with one of those vessels later coming under attack by the militants.


Jordan completes latest airdrop of aid to Gaza

Jordan completes latest airdrop of aid to Gaza
Updated 12 November 2024
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Jordan completes latest airdrop of aid to Gaza

Jordan completes latest airdrop of aid to Gaza
  • UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees warns that the amount of emergency humanitarian supplies entering the territory ‘is at its lowest level in months’
  • Jordanian Armed Forces have carried out 123 airdrops of emergency aid to Gaza since war began, and a further 266 in joint efforts with other countries

LONDON: Jordan’s air force carried out its latest delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday.

It came as the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said the amount of emergency supplies entering the enclave is lower than it has been for months.

Royal Jordanian Air Force C130 Hercules aircraft dropped crates of food, drinking water and medical supplies, the Jordan News Agency reported. Since the war began in October last year, the Jordanian Armed Forces have completed 123 airdrops of emergency aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and a further 266 as part of joint efforts with countries including France and the UK.

Humanitarian officials consider land convoys to be the most effective way of delivering emergency supplies to help ease the humanitarian crisis, but Jordan has resorted to airdrops because of Israeli army restrictions on access to the Gaza Strip that have been in place since last year.

Also on Tuesday, Louise Wateridge, an emergencies officer with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, warned that “aid entering the Gaza Strip is at its lowest level in months.”

On Monday, during the Extraordinary Arab-Islamic Summit in Riyadh, Jordan’s King Abdullah called for “a humanitarian bridge to break the siege imposed on the people in the Gaza Strip and deliver emergency aid to the sector that is suffering a humanitarian disaster.”

He said that finding “a real political horizon to resolve the Palestinian issue on the basis of the two-state solution” remains the “only way to achieve peace, stability and security in the region.”


How Israeli far-right violations of East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa compound are growing in scope and severity

How Israeli far-right violations of East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa compound are growing in scope and severity
Updated 13 November 2024
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How Israeli far-right violations of East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa compound are growing in scope and severity

How Israeli far-right violations of East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa compound are growing in scope and severity
  • Jews and other non-Muslims may visit Al-Aqsa but must not pray there or display religious symbols
  • In recent years, the restrictions have been increasingly flouted by hardline religious nationalists, prompting violence

LONDON: As feared, they came in their thousands, swarming into the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem at the height of the week-long Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.

On Sunday, Oct. 20, while the world’s attention was focused on the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, more than a thousand Israeli settlers occupied the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem. Over the next two days, thousands more followed.

Inside, protected by police who prevented Muslims from entering, they performed Jewish religious rituals in defiance of the longstanding status quo at the Haram Al-Sharif, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

A member of the Israeli security forces and Palestinians waiting near the Lion's Gate scuffle as they wait to enter the Al-Aqsa mosque compound to attend the last Friday noon prayer of Islam's holy fasting month of Ramadan, on April 5, 2024. (AFP)

The forced entries over three days, the latest in a series of provocative acts orchestrated by far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, came as no surprise to Ir Amim, an Israeli human rights organization that works “to render Jerusalem a more equitable and sustainable city for the Israelis and Palestinians who share it.”

On the eve of the Jewish High Holiday season, Ir Amim (“City of Nations” in Hebrew) issued a report revealing that 2024 was already “a record year in terms of the scope and severity of Israel’s violations of the status quo on the Mount.”

It warned that the situation “is particularly dangerous given that undermining the status quo on the Haram Al-Sharif/Temple Mount is liable to escalate into another front of violence” and added that the Israeli government’s “distorted priorities regarding the management of the war in Gaza and the north are also reflected in its conduct on the Haram Al-Sharif/Temple Mount.”

FASTFACTS

• Jews, other non-Muslims may visit Al-Aqsa compound in East Jerusalem, but may not pray there or display religious symbols.

• In recent years, the restrictions have been increasingly flouted by hardline religious nationalists, prompting violent reactions.

In January 2023, nine months before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Ben Gvir staged one of his controversial visits to the site, ignoring warnings from other Israeli politicians that he risked provoking violence and saying that he would not “surrender to the threats of Hamas.”

According to Hamas, it was repeated provocations such as those orchestrated by Ben Gvir that led to the Oct. 7 attack, which it codenamed “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.” About 1,200 Israelis were killed and some 250 others kidnapped during the coordinated attack by Palestinian militant groups. The subsequent Israeli military retaliation has, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, left nearly 42,000 Palestinians dead and more than 92,000 injured.

Israeli men pray on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, where Muslim devotees participate in their Friday Noon prayer, in Jerusalem on March 29, 2024. (AFP)

Resolving the thorny status of Jerusalem is viewed as an important prerequisite to peace. On Monday, Arab and Muslim leaders concluded a landmark summit in Riyadh with a unified demand for Israel to withdraw from all occupied Palestinian territories.

The summit’s closing statement stressed that East Jerusalem is the “eternal capital of Palestine,” and rejected any Israeli decisions aimed at “Judaizing” it, considering such measures “null, void and illegitimate under international law.”

The leaders of 57 nations said they considered “Al-Quds Al-Sharif a red line for the Arab and Islamic nations,” and reaffirmed their “absolute solidarity in protecting the Arab and Islamic identity of occupied East Al-Quds and in defending the sanctity of the holy Islamic and Christian sites therein.”

Israeli police take position during clashes with Palestinians on Laylat al-Qadr during the holy month of Ramadan, at Jerusalem's Old City, May 8, 2021. (REUTERS)

For Muslims, the mosque compound is the third-holiest site in Islam. As the Temple Mount, it also holds great significance for Jews, who believe it was the site of both the First Temple, destroyed by Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar II in 587 B.C., and the Second Temple, built in the first century B.C. and destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70.

For decades, a delicate status quo has preserved the balance of interests at the site, which has been a waqf — an Islamic religious endowment — since the 12th century. Since 1948, the site has been managed by the Jordanian-appointed Jerusalem Islamic Waqf and Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs Council, known simply as the Waqf.

By international agreement, the Waqf has retained responsibility for the site ever since, although since the occupation of the Old City of Jerusalem by Israel after the Six Day War in 1967, Israeli forces have controlled access to it.

Challenging the status quo on the Temple Mount is a dangerous, unnecessary, and irresponsible act, says Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former defense minister. (AFP)

The compound has always been open for Jews to visit during specified hours, but they are not allowed to pray there or display religious symbols.

Ironically, said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer and founder of nongovernmental organization Terrestrial Jerusalem, it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who “best defined this core understanding in 2015 when he said: ‘Muslims pray at the Temple Mount; non-Muslims visit the Temple Mount’.”

Seidemann added: “Until 2017, Netanyahu reasonably maintained the status quo. But since then, he has incrementally allowed Jewish prayer, while disingenuously asserting that Israel is committed to maintaining the status quo.

“That was, and is, a lie.”

Israeli police confronts Palestinians at al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, Monday, Feb. 18, 2019. (AP)

The UN Security Council has repeatedly had cause to rebuke Israel for undermining the status quo, and last month the Waqf issued a joint statement with the Supreme Islamic Authority and the Palestinian Fatwa House accusing Israel of an “extremely dangerous escalation” by allowing settlers free rein in the compound.

In the past, said Seidemann, “many hundreds of Israelis, many Jewish, visited the mosques daily without incident. They came as guests and were treated as guests.

“But today’s visitors are best represented by Ben Gvir. He visits as the proprietor and treats the Muslims as his tenants.

“Jewish visits to the Mount no longer have anything to do with piety, and everything to do with ultra-nationalist religious triumphalism.”

He added: “Commencing with the new Netanyahu government, the veil has been ripped away. The violation of the status quo is both so blatant and consistent it cannot be denied.”

During Ramadan this year, “some of these new developments were temporarily suspended. That required a lot of discrete negotiations, leading to public safety being vested in security people with cool heads and steady hands.

“This year, as an exception, it was the quietest Ramadan in memory. Nothing stabilizes Jerusalem as much as the pursuit of the status quo in good faith.”

But following the end of Ramadan in April, said Ir Amim researcher Aviv Tatarsky, “Israel again imposed harsh restrictions on Muslim entry to Al-Aqsa, reverting to the unprecedented measures implemented after Oct. 7 and the subsequent outbreak of the war.”

Muslim worshippers under the age of 40 “are consistently denied access to the Mount by the police, even during Muslim prayer times.

“The most stringent restrictions are imposed during Jewish visits, which ultimately translates into a ban on Muslim entry while Jews conduct prayer unencumbered on the Mount.”

This systematic exclusion of Muslims from their place of worship during Jewish visits, he said, “is not only a breach of Muslim worship rights and the status quo, but also contributes to heightened tensions in an already volatile climate.”

According to Ir Amim, this past year there has been an up to 20 percent increase in the number of Jewish visits to the Mount, with over 50,000 recorded since the beginning of the Hebrew year in September 2023, surpassing the previous annual record.

But this figure refers to the number of visits, and not unique visitors, and what it reflects is an increasing number of visits primarily by “a small, albeit vocal, segment of the population alongside government supporters,” pushing for an increased Jewish presence on the Mount.

“This reality directly contradicts the Israeli government’s attempts to justify changes to the arrangements as a result of ‘pressure from below’,” said Tatarsky.

“The vast majority of the Jewish public remains uninterested in praying at the Holy Compound, while the erosion of the status quo is entirely the work of the government in service to a fringe extremist group.”

Israel’s Heritage Ministry recently announced its intention to fund Jewish visits to the compound with a budget of 2 million shekels (about $530,000.)

“The Temple movements, which are behind the Jewish tours and visits to the Mount, require government funding to sustain their activities,” said Tatarsky.

“Thus, the new budget constitutes a calculated government effort to manufacture further challenges to the status quo, aiming to engineer the Israeli public in service to its goals.”

Ir Amim has made a number of recommendations for maintaining the status quo. These include allowing unrestricted Muslim access to the Mount and, “if the police find it difficult to manage the simultaneous presence of Muslim worshippers and Jewish visitors, the entry of Muslims should take precedence,” it says, adding: “Muslim worship rights trump non-Muslim visiting rights.”

In addition, it says, Israel must prevent any Jewish prayer or worship activity on the Mount, prohibit government ministers from speaking against the status quo and visiting the Mount, and cancel the allocation of all funds to the Jewish Temple movements.

“Even after years of activity by the Temple movements, only a small minority of the Jewish public visits the Temple Mount,” said Tatarsky. “The government is ultimately promoting the interests of a fringe extreme Jewish group, while severely harming millions of Muslim residents and Israel’s relations with Arab countries, especially Jordan.”

In the past, Jewish extremists have made no secret of their wish to destroy the mosque and replace it with a “Third Temple.” This ambition is enshrined in the Amidah, the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy, which includes the entreaty “that the Temple be rebuilt speedily in our days.”

Over the decades, the mosque has been the target of arson and bomb attacks. In 1990, 20 Muslims were killed and dozens more wounded in clashes provoked by an attempt by an extremist Jewish group to lay a symbolic cornerstone for the “Third Temple” in the Al-Aqsa compound.

In recent years, extremist groups, encouraged by Ben Gvir and other right-wing politicians, have stepped up the campaign to see a third temple built on the site. Ben Gvir, who has made multiple provocative visits to the Mount, has insisted Jews should be allowed to pray on the site, a position denounced by some Israeli politicians and rabbis.

A threat made by Ben Gvir in August to build a synagogue at the Al-Aqsa compound drew condemnations from several Israeli officials.

A statement from Netanyahu’s office reiterated that “there (was) no change” to the existing policy.