Israel says fully committed to status quo of Temple Mount

An Israeli envoy to the United Nation on Thursday reiterated Israel's commitment to preserving the status quo of Temple Mount, a holy site for both Muslims and Jews.

"Israel is fully committed to the status quo," said Danny Danon, Israel's permanent representative to the UN, adding that "Israel not only accepted this arrangement, it is responsible for enforcing it."

"Muslims are free to visit and pray at the compound at any time. Members of other religions, including Jews and Christians, may only visit, and may do so only on weekday mornings between seven and eleven o'clock," he said in a Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East.

According to him, "Every year, there are 3.5 million visits by Muslims, who come to pray in the A1-Aksa mosque, and 80,000 non-Muslims visit the site, of which only 12,000 are Jews."

"The status quo on the Temple Mount is the only guarantee that the freedom of religion will be respected," he noted.

"Yet, some in the international community are ready to change the decades-long status quo simply because the Palestinians have demanded it," he said. "Israel will not agree to an international presence on the Temple Mount."

The hilltop compound is the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site for Jews, which is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

Jews are allowed to visit but cannot pray in the Temple Mount, in understandings referred to as the "status quo," which were incorporated into the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan.

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will work to keep the "status quo" intact, right wing Jewish activists have deplored the "status quo," urging Israel to allow Jews to pray at the site, and made several visits to the site.

Clashes often broke out between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces at the sacred site, especially around holy holidays.

Israel occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank territories in the 1967 Mideast War, and annexed Palestinian villages in east Jerusalem in 1981, in a move deplored by the international community. More than 300,000 Palestinians live in east Jerusalem.

Palestinians fear Israel's takeover of the holy site in East Jerusalem, and view East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state, based on the two-state solution. Enditem