Temple Mount Partially Reopens Two Days After Attack
Holy Site Fight: Palestinians hold up plastic guns during demonstrations on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Image by getty images
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Temple Mount partially reopened on Sunday, with metal detectors places at the open entrances, two days after three Arab-Israeli visitors to the site opened fire on Israel Police guarding the area, killing two Druze-Arab officers.
Few Muslim worshippers entered the site on Sunday in protest of the metal detectors, according to reports (prior to Sunday, metal detectors only were placed at the entrance for tourists and Jewish visitors). Worshippers instead held their early afternoon prayer service at the gate.
The Old City of Jerusalem on Sunday also was closed off, except to local residents and tourists, according to reports.
Netanyahu said Saturday night before he left on a plane to Paris that he spoke with the parents of the two Druze police officers killed in the Friday attack. “I sent them a hug from every citizen of Israel and participation in their awful grief,” Netanyahu said.
He also announced that he ordered the mourners’ tents of the families of the Arab-Israeli murderers to be destroyed.
Police spent the two days of the Temple Mount closure searching the site for weapons, and reportedly removed their shoes when they entered the holy site to conduct their searches. Knives, slingshots, batons, spikes, unexploded ordnance, binoculars and dummy plastic weapons were found at the site, but no firearms and ammunition, Haaretz reported.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
