An Arab Israeli lawmaker said he entered Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound today despite a ban on visits by members of parliament to the site at the heart of a wave of deadly violence.
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During the Ottoman Empire, Jews were allowed to visit Temple Mount but were not allowed to pray there.
An Israeli Arab attacker was also killed.
But there has been no apparent action toward implementing a Jordanian proposal, promoted by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, to try to stem the bloodshed – by installing cameras to monitor Jerusalem’s flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Instead, he added, the Palestinians needed to “propose solutions that will contribute in a real way to the improvement of life, to the reduction of violence and to the safety and security of Israelis”.
Over the same period, at least 2,200 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli gunfire, while thousands of others have suffered temporary asphyxia as a result of excessive teargas, the ministry said.
Late Tuesday evening, Hammam Said, 23, reportedly attempted to stab an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint in Tel Rumeida and was shot dead by Israeli forces.
In recent days the violence has mainly struck in the West Bank. On Wednesday, the military said a Palestinian drew a knife at an army post in the West Bank city of Hebron and tried to stab a soldier.
“Isn’t it high time for the worldwide community to move from merely talking about the justice of the Palestinian cause to taking practical measures and procedures that would serve justice to my Palestinian people?” he said.
In all, 11 Israelis have been killed, mostly in stabbings, while 54 Palestinians, including 32 said by Israel to be attackers, have been killed by Israeli fire. The protesters also demand an end to Israel’s decades-long military occupation of the Palestinian territories and the cessation of settlement building, both of which are illegal under worldwide law.
Salah has often focused his fiery rhetoric on claims that Israel was altering prayer arrangements at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
At the security cabinet meeting, Mr Netanyahu complained of lawlessness in Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem’s outlying areas, where sporadic Israeli raids to arrest suspected militants are usually met with violent protests.
The Palestinian leader, he said, “refuses to take responsibility for his own behavior: running away from negotiations, fomenting incitement, and even refusing to condemn terrorism”.
On Tuesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said it was her “dream to see the Israeli flag flying” over the holy site, prompting Netanyahu to order government ministers to follow the party line.
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Abbas criticized Netanyahu for comments a week earlier suggesting that a World War II-era Palestinian religious leader had persuaded the Nazis to carry out a policy that exterminated 6 million Jews. Netanyahu’s remarks were first reported by Channel Two television late on Sunday.
