Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday for the second time in a week, a Palestinian agency has said.
Jerusalem’s Islamic Endowments Directorate and witnesses said the extremist minister entered the flashpoint site under heavy Israeli police protection.
Last week, Ben-Gvir made a similar incursion at the start of the Jewish Sukkot holiday, a move that drew widespread Palestinian condemnations.
The incursion was not announced in advance, while Israeli ministers are only allowed to enter the site with prior approval from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Since assuming his post in 2022, Ben-Gvir has forced his way into the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex 13 times, including 10 times since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.
‘Flagrant violation of status’
Jordan denounced Ben-Gvir and extremist Jewish settlers’ Al-Aqsa Mosque incursion, calling it “a flagrant violation of the existing legal and historical status of Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
“Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied city of Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy sites,” the Jordanian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Fuad Al-Majali called on Israel, as an occupying power, “to halt these violations and all provocative measures that constitute a continuation of the Israeli government’s racist policy aimed at perpetuating its dangerous escalation and unilateral, illegitimate, and illegal measures in the occupied West Bank and the violation of the sanctity of Islamic and Christian holy sites in occupied Jerusalem.”
The spokesman reaffirmed that Al-Aqsa Mosque, with its entire space, is an exclusive place of worship for Muslims, and the Jordan-run Islamic Waqf Department “is the only authority legally responsible for overseeing the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
‘Attempt to alter Islamic identity’
On Monday, the Islamic Endowments Council in Jerusalem said that the mosque compound witnessed “the worst demolition of its historical and legal status in modern times,” particularly throughout 2025.
The council said in a statement that Israeli authorities and extremist Jewish groups have recently carried out “flagrant and unprecedented violations,” including “large-scale incursions into the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, desecration of its sanctity, and attempts to alter its Islamic identity” through practices by Jewish extremists as Talmudic rituals, chanting, dancing, flag-waving, and even offering animal and plant sacrifices inside the compound.
Al-Aqsa Mosque is the world's third-holiest site for Muslims. Jews call the area Temple Mount, claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognised by the international community.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
