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Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Kotel (Western Wall) and Holy Sites, decried the Arab attempts to wreck the week-long Sukkot holiday by launching violent riots against police and Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. Speaking to Arutz Sheva, the rabbi argued that the Arab rioters are intentionally trying to prevent Jews from reaching the site on Sukkot, one of the three Jewish pilgrimage holidays that in ancient times required Jews to travel to the Temple in Jerusalem, a practice maintained by many. “The Arab leadership’s feigned ignorance in the face of these acts...

Hundreds of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip prayed Sunday at Jerusalem’s most important mosque, the first time Israel has allowed such visits from the coastal enclave since the Hamas militant group overran the area in 2007. The visit was among a package of concessions that Israel has made in the wake of a 50-day war against Hamas to coincide with the current Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. Israel said it granted some 1,500 permits to Palestinians in Gaza wanting to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque during the three-day holiday, which began Saturday. […] Israel sharply has restricted travel out of...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been stepping up its libel that Israel is "destroying" the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the temple mount in Jerusalem, in order to build the "alleged" Temple. The highest PA religious authority, Mufti Muhammad Hussein, asserted in late March that Israel was making an "attempt... at laying hands on the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque... and in addition to the threat of destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque to establish the alleged Temple on its ruins."

Israeli police arrested 16 Palestinians at one of Jerusalem's most revered and politically sensitive holy sites on Sunday as they dispersed protesters opposed to any Jewish attempts to pray there. A police spokesman said officers used stun grenades to disperse dozens of rioters, who threw rocks and firecrackers at them at the site revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's walled Old City. Two officers were slightly injured and treated at the scene in the brief clash, the spokesman added. Five Palestinians were also slightly hurt, a Muslim clergyman said. Police...

Israeli security officials said on Wednesday evening that they would ultimately have to force their way into al-Aqsa mosque, atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, because hundreds of young Palestinian men are now routinely stockpiling large quantities of rocks and slabs of stone there to attack security forces. The unnamed officials, quoted by Israel’s Channel 2 news, were speaking hours after dozens of Palestinian protesters and an Israeli policeman were wounded on the Mount when clashes broke out soon after the holy site was opened to Jewish visitors on Wednesday morning. >>SNIP<< The officials were quoted saying that,...

A volunteer with the Magen David Adom first aid service was forced on Sunday to remove his jacket with the organization’s emblem before he was allowed to enter the Temple Mount. The emblem of Magen David Adom is a red Star of David. … Police, in an attempt to appease the Waqf, limit the number of Jewish worshipers allowed on the Temple Mount at one time in order to prevent conflict with Muslim worshipers. Police often close the Mount to Jews in response to Muslim riots—despite evidence that Muslim riots have been planned in advance for the specific purpose of...

Eyewitnesses told Turkish media this week that a portion of the Temple Mount platform near the Al Aqsa Mosque has collapsed, creating a serious safety hazard and a possible threat to the stability of the Islamic structure. If the report is accurate, it would be the second serious collapse on the Temple Mount in the past five years. Palestinian officials claim that the collapses are caused by deliberate Israeli action to bring down the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock so that the Jewish Temple can be rebuilt. But archaeologists and engineers have been warning for...

A Jewish website that aims to teach Israelis about the Temple has been met with an angry backlash from the Arab Muslim community. The Har Hakodesh (lit. “The Holy Mountain”) website includes educational material about the history of the Temple Mount, which was the site of the First Temple and Second Temple. The Temples were the focus of divine service for the Jewish nation. … What has caused upset in the Muslim world is a representation of the Temple Mount as it would appear with a rebuilt Jewish Temple atop it rather than Al-Aqsa Mosque that currently stands there. …

Pro-Morsi demonstration at Al-Aqsa Mosque: U.S., France, Britain to be destroyed, Rome to be conquered There were also calls for the restoration of the caliphate. The caliphate is supposed to be the unitary state in which every Muslim is a citizen. In Sunni theology, only the caliph is authorized to wage offensive jihad -- which is one reason (but not the only reason) why in the current absence of a caliph all jihads are justified by endless grievance-mongering. All jihad is currently defensive, so the grievances have to be retailed. This crowd also repeated the genocidal and anti-Semitic "Khaybar" war...

The Palestinian Authority’s prime minister Rami Hamdallah on Sunday became the first PA premier to visit the Al-Aqsa mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, AFP reports. “Jerusalem is a symbol of the Palestinian question,” Hamdallah was quoted as having told the official WAFA news agency. “Our visit today shows how important Jerusalem is to the Palestinian government.” … The Al-Aqsa mosque is located on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Jerusalem which was left in the hands of the Waqf following Jerusalem’s reunification in 1967. Arabs continuously make false accusations that Israel is “Judaizing” the Temple Mount, sometimes...

Political and religious leaders in the Palestinian Authority on Sunday stressed that U.S. President Barack Obama should not visit the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem in a way that might compromise what they called its "Muslim sovereignty," AFP reports. Obama will be arriving in the region in the spring, and PA media has been speculating that he will visit the site of the mosque. The White House, however, has announced neither the dates of Obama's visit nor its itinerary. Sheikh Akrameh Sabri, head of the higher Islamic council and former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, said that Obama must enter through...

A Holy War – Part I The Al Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount by Ari Bussel A Wall, that is all that separates two titans from a clash of civilizations, a 7th Century Islam against a 21st Century Judaism. Two monotheistic religions, both claiming to be derived from the same Patriarch Abraham and to be able to co-exist, find themselves in modern times on a deadly collision course. All that contains the conflict is a wall, the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Many significant events took place at the top of this mountain: Tradition says that the...

CAIRO, (Reuters) - Egyptian police used batons against tens of Muslim Brotherhood loyalists on Friday and turned away hundreds of worshippers to block a protest against an Israeli dig near Jerusalem's most sacred Muslim shrine, witnesses said. Riot police chased some protesters through the narrow alleys of one of Cairo's ancient Islamic neighbourhoods, a Reuters witness said. Police hit a photographer working for Reuters with a stick and barred him from taking pictures. Hundreds of riot police and plainclothes security agents manned road blocks and turned away hundreds of worshippers who flocked for Friday's mass prayers at al-Azhar mosque, where...

A decision by Israel's highest court has triggered fears of a "third intifada." On Tuesday, the Israel Supreme Court upheld a request by far-right Jewish activists that they be allowed on Thursday to enter Islam's third holiest shrine, the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount. The decision to allow the controversial visit to the east Jerusalem mosque compound was taken despite police warnings that it could spark riots in Israel and the occupied territories. The small Temple Mount Faithul group requested to visit the compound, where according to Jewish tradition Herod's Temple stood,...

NABLUS, March 8, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Extremist Jewish settlers are planning to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest place, by next April, Al-according to Al-Aqsa Institution for Reconstruction of Islamic Sanctities. Leaders of Jewish settlers have declared some 10,000 settlers are planning to storm the holy mosque in a bid to perform Jewish “religious rituals” in the holy place, they claim to be the site of “Temple Mount”. Leaflets are being distributed by Jewish settlers to urge Jews to join the storming of the Islamic holy site on April 10. Extremist Jewish groups, which rally for the construction of the...

The Palestinian political z(they said that, not me) group Hamas issued a stark warning on Saturday of any harm done to the holy Al Aqsa Mosque in light of repeated Jewish extremists' threats to blast it. The Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said his group held Israel responsible if any harm were to fall on the Mosque and urged fellow Muslims to shoulder their responsibility vis-à-vis such threats. "The Zionist information on presence of such planning was a clear attempt to prepare for it actually taking place," Abu Zuhri conveyed. "We believe the Jewish state is providing cover for those...

Dec. 23, 2003 Mubarak calls Sharon, thanks him for Maher visit By JPOST.COM STAFFEgyptian President Hosni Mubarak telephoned Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Tuesday night to thank him for the "welcome and the successful meetings" held Monday in Israel with his Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher. Officials in the prime minister's office said, "The two leaders discussed ways to advance the diplomatic process in the region. Mubarak emphasized his desire to advance Egyptian relations with Israel and expressed his interest in helping to advance the peace process." Meanwhile Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization's political department, arrived in Cairo on...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher has collapsed after being assaulted by a crowd of Palestinians as he entered the al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, witnesses say. Witnesses earlier said it appeared Maher had been physically beaten but later said he was accosted and jostled and possibly struck one or two times, causing him to fall to the ground. "A group of Palestinian extremists started shouting at Maher and calling him a traitor and collaborator and then they were trying to reach him but guards (nearby) prevented them," a mosque guard who witnessed the incident old...

(IsraelNN.com) Minister of Public Security Tzachi Hanegbi announced that in the very near future, Jews would be permitted access to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, to visit and pray, Israel Radio reported. Hanegbi was quoted as saying if an agreement is not reached with the Islamic Waqf Authority, then the government would make a unilateral decision and take the necessary actions to prevent any violent response aimed at preventing the state from exercising its right to access the holy site.

PA Threats Against Americans The official radio station of the Palestinian Authority, Voice of Palestine, broadcast a sermon from the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on February 7, in which the Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrimah Sabri, preached, “While Muslims slaughter sheep on ‘Id al-Adha, the United States will slay Muslims in Iraq in order to carry out its aggressive, criminal, terrorist, and inhuman designs...O Allah, deter the aggressors and conspirators. O Allah, destroy them all. O Allah, protect Iraq and its people.” (Translation courtesy of FBIS.) Also on February 7, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Mudayris delivered a sermon from a central mosque...