Netanyahu Urges Restraint in Row Over Sacred Site
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Version 0 of 1. JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called Saturday night for “responsibility and restraint” regarding this city’s most sensitive sacred site, urging members of Parliament “to work to calm the situation” after days of mounting tension. Several lawmakers from Mr. Netanyahu’s own Likud Party have been among a small but vocal group advocating increased Jewish access and prayer at the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Israel closed the revered plateau entirely for the first time in years on Thursday, after counterterrorism forces killed a Palestinian suspected of trying the night before to assassinate Yehuda Glick, a 48-year-old Israeli-American and a leading advocate for increased Jewish access. As the site of the ancient Jewish temples, the Mount is the holiest spot in Judaism, but Israel prohibits non-Muslims from openly praying there to avoid provocations. It is also among Islam’s three holiest places, drawing thousands daily to prayer at Al Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Though Palestinian leaders denounced Thursday’s closing as “a declaration of war” and called for a “day of rage” protest on Friday, the day passed without a major flare-up, and there were none on Saturday either. Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said a 13-year-old Arab was arrested Saturday for jumping on an Israeli Jew walking through an Old City gate, and a police officer was slightly injured as he tried to control a crowd afterward. Mr. Rosenfeld said the Aksa compound, from which Israel had barred men under 50 on Friday to avoid further unrest, would be open to all on Sunday. That includes Jews and Christian tourists, whom Israel keeps out on Fridays, the high point of the Islamic week. Yair Lapid, Israel’s centrist finance minister, said in a television interview Saturday night that while he was praying “along with everyone else” that Mr. Glick would recover from the four gunshot wounds he sustained in the attack, his party would stop “all those efforts to change the status quo on the Temple Mount.” “We won’t let that happen, because it sets Jerusalem on fire, and Jerusalem mustn’t be set on fire,” Mr. Lapid said on Channel 2 News. “Politicians and nonpoliticians have been raising the flames for domestic reasons. That isn’t responsible.” In a separate development, Israel announced that its crossing points into the Gaza Strip would be closed Sunday in retaliation for the firing of a rocket from Gaza into Israel at about 9 p.m. on Friday. The rocket landed in an open area near Gaza and did not cause any damage, according to an Israeli military spokeswoman, but it violates the Aug. 26 cease-fire that ended this summer’s 50-day battle between Israel and Palestinian militants in the coastal territory. A spokeswoman for the coordinator of activities in the territories, the Israeli agency that handles civilian contact with the Palestinians, said humanitarian medical cases and international aid workers would still be allowed through the Erez crossing, but businesspeople and the few other travelers would not. Kerem Shalom, the commercial crossing through which food and gas are imported, will be shuttered entirely, the spokeswoman said. She said that the closings were “because of the security situation” and that it had not yet been decided how long they would last. |