Far-right Israeli minister sparks outrage by visiting flashpoint mosque compound
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00:00It's a walkabout certain to be seen as a provocation by Palestinian Muslims.
00:04Israel's hardline national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir led a group of worshippers
00:09to pray at the western wall of the Al-Aqsa compound on Tuesday.
00:13Ben-Gvir was bullish about the action, which comes with the war in Gaza now in its 11th month.
00:23We are on Tisha B'Av, the Temple Mount, coming to mark the destruction of the Temple.
00:28But it needs to be said with sincerity, there is very significant progress here in the government,
00:34in the sovereignty. As I have said, our policy is to enable prayer.
00:43The western wall on the Temple Mount, as it is known to Jews, is located in the Al-Aqsa compound,
00:49which houses what is considered to be the third holiest site in Islam.
00:52Also nearby is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
00:55sacred to Christians. Access to the site, referred to by the United Nations as the Holy
01:01Esplanade, is strictly controlled under a stasis quo agreement between the Israeli government
01:06and Muslim religious authorities. The United States condemned the visit,
01:10saying it risked further inflaming the situation in the region.
01:14Let me just say clearly that the United States stands firmly for preservation of the historic
01:20status quo with respect to the holy sites of Jerusalem. And any unilateral action,
01:26which this would be that, any unilateral action like this, that jeopardises such a status quo,
01:32is unacceptable. The precedents for the visit have had wide
01:36repercussions. A visit to the same site by Ariel Sharon in September 2000 provoked massive protests
01:43that led to the second intifada. Sharon would be elected prime minister six months later,
01:49beginning an era where Israel began to move further away from the 1993 Oslo peace accords.