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Trump ‘very committed’ to Mideast peace, envoy Kushner says

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump remains “very committed” to achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace, his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of talks on Thursday.

But there was little to suggest any breakthrough or significant progress towards ending a decades-old conflict is imminent as Kushner began a day of separate meetings with Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestinians were still seeking a pledge of support from the Trump administration for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel – the foundation of U.S. Middle East policy for the past two decades. The last round of peace talks between the two sides collapsed in 2014.

For his part, Netanyahu faces pressure from right-wing coalition partners not to give ground on Jewish settlement building in occupied territory that Palestinians seek for a independent state. The settlement issue contributed to the breakdown of negotiations three years ago.

“We have things to talk about – how to advance peace, stability and security in our region, prosperity too. And I think that all of them are within our reach,” Netanyahu, welcoming Kushner to his Tel Aviv office, said in a video clip released by the U.S. Embassy.

Kushner, a 36-year-old real estate developer with little experience of international diplomacy or political negotiation,

arrived in Israel with U.S. Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt on Wednesday after meeting Arab leaders in the Gulf, Egypt and Jordan.

“The president is very committed to achieving a solution here that will be able to bring prosperity and peace to all people in this area,” Kushner, who was tasked by Trump to help broker a peace deal, said in his response to Netanyahu.

“ULTIMATE DEAL”

Trump has described peace between Israelis and Palestinians as “the ultimate deal” – and added a new wrinkle last February by saying he was not fixed on two states co-existing side by side as a solution to their dispute.

In the West Bank, Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Abbas, said Kushner’s visit – he last traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories in June – could prove significant, particularly because of the envoy’s consultations with regional allies this week.

“This may create a new chance to reach a settlement based on the two-state solution and the Arab initiative and stop the current deterioration of the peace process.”

Abu Rdainah was referring to a 2002 Arab League initiative that offers Israel diplomatic recognition from Arab countries in return for a statehood deal with the Palestinians and a full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in a 1967 war.

Netanyahu has expressed tentative support for parts of the blueprint, but there are many caveats on the Israeli side, including how to resolve the complex Palestinian refugee issue.

Painting a pessimistic picture, Mahmoud al-Aloul, the second-ranking official in Abbas’ Fatah movement, accused U.S. negotiators of focusing in their talks with the president on “Israeli lies” about Palestinian incitement to violence and ignoring what he described as fundamental statehood issues.

“I do not think the American envoys are coming carrying anything – nothing at all,” he told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, editing by Mark Heinrich)

Netanyahu to Putin: Iran’s growing Syria role threatens Israel

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Sochi, Russia August 23, 2017. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS

By Denis Pinchuk

SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) – Iran’s growing role in Syria poses a threat to Israel, the Middle East and the world, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

“Mr. President, with joint efforts we are defeating Islamic State, and this is a very important thing. But the bad thing is that where the defeated Islamic State group vanishes, Iran is stepping in,” Netanyahu told Putin during talks at Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi.

“We cannot forget for a single minute that Iran threatens every day to annihilate Israel,” Netanyahu said. “It (Iran) arms terrorist organizations, it sponsors and initiates terror.”

Netanyahu also said that “Iran is already well on its way to controlling Iraq, Yemen and to a large extent is already in practice in control of Lebanon”.

Iran denies sponsoring terrorism.

Putin, in the part of the meeting to which reporters had access, did not address Netanyahu’s remarks about Iran’s role in Syria.

Russia intervened in Syria on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2015, its forces fighting what it deems Islamist terrorists. Russia is acting in partnership with Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, Israel’s arch-foes.

In the past few months, Russia has been the main broker of de-escalation zones set up in Syria. Israel worries those zones will allow Iranian troops and Hezbollah forces to deploy in greater strength.

Moscow argues its big-power clout deters Iran or Hezbollah from opening a new front with Israel.

In comments published last week, the chief of Israel’s air force said Israel had struck suspected Hezbollah arms shipments in Syria around 100 times during the Syrian civil war, apparently without Russian interference and rarely drawing retaliation.

(Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Christian Lowe)

Trump will send envoys to Middle East to discuss peace: official

Senior Adviser to the President Jared Kushner speaks outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 24, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is sending his son-in-law Jared Kushner and negotiator Jason Greenblatt to the Middle East soon to meet regional leaders and discuss a “path to substantive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks,” a White House official said on Friday.

Deputy national security adviser Dina Powell will also be on the trip, which will include meetings with leaders from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the official said.

“While the regional talks will play an important role, the president reaffirms that peace between Israelis and Palestinians can only be negotiated directly between the two parties and that the United States will continue working closely with the parties to make progress towards that goal,” the official said.

Kushner, who serves as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, was charged with helping to broker a deal between Israelis and Palestinians after Trump took office.

The president went to Saudi Arabia and Israel during his first post-inauguration trip abroad and has expressed a personal commitment to reaching a deal that has eluded his Republican and Democratic predecessors.

The timing of the trip was pegged to the recent “restoration of calm and the stabilized situation in Jerusalem” after a spate of violence last month sparked by Israel’s installation of metal detectors at entry points to the Noble Sanctuary or Temple Mount compound there.

Trump directed that the talks focus on a pathway to peace talks, fighting “extremism,” easing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and identifying economic steps that can be taken to ensure security and stability, the official said.

“To enhance the chances for peace, all parties need to engage in creating an environment conducive to peace-making while affording the negotiators and facilitators the time and space they need to reach a deal,” the official said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Dan Grebler and James Dalgleish)

Israel warns Hamas not to try to foil its anti-tunnel Gaza wall

FILE PHOTO - Heavy machinery can be seen at work along Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, as seen from Kfar Aza, southern Israel February 28, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel warned Gaza’s Hamas rulers on Thursday not to try to foil its construction of a border wall designed to stop tunnels between the two sides.

It said it had mapped militant emplacements hidden under civilian sites in the Palestinian enclave that may be attacked in any new war.

Hamas accused Israel of belligerence.

The unusually detailed Israeli threat followed a rocket launch on Tuesday which caused no damage in Israel and went unclaimed by Gazan groups. Israel responded with an air strike on a Hamas facility that medics said wounded seven people.

Such flare-ups have been relatively rare since the last Gaza war, in 2014, with Hamas mostly holding fire and reining in smaller militant factions.

But as Gaza’s poverty and political drift deepens, both sides worry another conflict could erupt.

In September, Israel went public with a sensor-equipped underground wall being planted on its side of the 37 mile- (60 km) long border, a counter-measure developed after Hamas fighters used tunnels to blindside its troops during the war.

Israeli media published new disclosures by the military on Thursday about the project, costing $1.1 billion and to be completed within two years under an accelerated schedule.

Israel has described it as a territorial counterpart to its Iron Dome short-range rocket interceptor, capable of blunting Hamas’s limited means of challenging its superior armed forces.

“I think the other side will have to re-evaluate the situation in view of the barrier’s construction,” Haaretz newspaper quoted the chief of Israel’s southern command, Major-General Eyal Zamir, as saying in the media briefing.

“If Hamas chooses to go to war over the barrier, it will be a worthy reason (for Israel) to go to war over. But the barrier will be built.”

The military also published aerial photographs and coordinates of two Gaza buildings that it said Hamas was using as cover for tunnel networks. One of these, it said, is a Hamas member’s family home, linked to a mosque by a secret passage.

“These two targets, as far as I’m concerned, are legitimate military targets, and in the event that a new war begins, anybody in them is endangering himself, his family, and the responsibility (for their wellbeing) will fall on Hamas,” Zamir said in a separate briefing to foreign journalists.

A Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called the Israeli statements “lies and fabrications that aim to damage the image of the Palestinian resistance and justify the mass killing of thousands of Palestinians civilians”.

More than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed in the 2014 war, according to the Gaza health ministry. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were killed.

A new buffer zone within Israel’s territory, dozens of meters (yards) in width, will afford it extra time to respond by depriving Hamas tunnelers of targets on the frontier.

Israeli media said on Thursday that the military also planned to build an underwater barrier in the Mediterranean to prevent infiltration from Gaza by sea.

(Reporting by Dan Williams; Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Israel moves to shut down local operations of Al Jazeera

An employee walks inside an office of Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network in Jerusalem June 13, 2017. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel plans to revoke the media credentials of Al Jazeera TV journalists, close its Jerusalem bureau and pull the Qatar-based station’s broadcasts from local cable and satellite providers, Communications Minister Ayoub Kara said on Sunday.

The closure did not appear imminent, however, and an Israeli official said a legal process was still required to implement most of the proposed steps.

The Israeli move adds further pressure on Qatar, which has been involved in a dispute with four of its Arab neighbours.

Kara said the measures were intended to bolster Israel’s security and “to bring a situation that channels based in Israel will report objectively”.

Al Jazeera said Kara’s comments were unsubstantiated and it would take all necessary legal measures if Israel acts on its threat.

Journalists working for the pan-Arab station in Israel said they did not expect imminent moves against them.

“Al Jazeera Media Network denounces this decision, which comes in the context of a campaign that was initiated by a statement made earlier by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…” Al Jazeera said in a statement late on Sunday.

Last month, Netanyahu said he would work to shut the network’s offices in Israel, accusing it of inciting violence in Jerusalem, including over an Old City site that is holy to both Muslims and Jews.

Kara said he would ask the Government Press Office to revoke the accreditation of Al Jazeera’s journalists in Israel, where it has about 30 staff. Cable and satellite providers have expressed their willingness to turn off its broadcasts, he said.

Kara added that he had asked Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan to use his powers to close the station’s offices in Israel, although a spokesman for Erdan said he doubted the minister had the authority to do so.

“Our ministry is not the address. Try the police,” spokesman Daniel Bar said.

Asked if shutting down Al Jazeera’s operations would make Israel appear to oppose freedom of the press, an official close to the prime minister said the country accepted diverse opinions but not incitement.

“The prime minister is not too pleased with the constant incitement that you see and hear on Al Jazeera, a lot of it in Arabic. There is a lot being broadcast on that channel that is frankly dangerous,” the official said.

“There is no shortage of free speech in this country. There are plenty of dissenting voices. In democratic countries there are also things that are unacceptable, and a lot of what Al Jazeera is saying and broadcasting falls into that category.”

In his news conference, to which Al Jazeera was not invited, Kara said steps had to be taken against “media, which has been determined by almost all Arab countries to actually be a supporter of terror, and we know this for certain.”

“We have identified media outlets that do not serve freedom of speech but endanger the security of Israel’s citizens, and the main instrument has been Al Jazeera,” Kara said.

He was referring to recent violence in and around a Jerusalem site that is revered by Muslims and Jews in which six Palestinians and five Israelis, including two policemen, were killed.

Al Jazeera said in July that Israel was aligning itself with four Arab states – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain – that have severed diplomatic and commercial ties with Qatar.

The Foreign Press Association in Israel criticised the planned moves.

“Changing the law in order to shut down a media organisation for political reasons is a slippery slope,” association executive secretary Glenys Sugarman said.

Al Jazeera has also faced government censure in Egypt. In 2014, Egypt jailed three of the network’s staffers for seven years and closed its offices. Two staffers have been released but a third remains imprisoned.

(Writing by Ori Lewis, Additional reporting by Dan Williams, Luke Baker and Tom Finn in Doha; editing by Angus MacSwan and Susan Fenton)

Reign of sewage in biblical valley may be coming to an end

Sewage flows in Kidron Valley, on the outskirts of Jerusalem July 6, 2017. Picture taken July 6, 2017.

By Ari Rabinovitch

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – There is a foul smell coming from the biblical Kidron Valley.

It’s so bad that King David and Jesus, who are said to have walked there thousands of years ago, would today need to take a detour to reach Jerusalem.

For decades now a quarter of Jerusalem’s sewage has flowed openly in the Kidron valley, meandering down the city’s foothills and through the Judean desert to the east. At its worst, the pollution leaks into the Dead Sea.

The stream runs back and forth between land under Israeli and Palestinian administration, making a fix hard to find. But finally it seems a solution has been reached.

Authorities on both sides have agreed to drain the valley of sewage. According to the plan, a pipeline will be constructed carrying the wastewater directly to new treatment facilities. Each side will fund and build the section that runs through its territory.

Until that happens, however, about 12 million cubic meters of sewage continue to flow through the valley each year.

“Of course it’s damaging the environment and the ecological system,” said Shony Goldberger, director of the Jerusalem district in Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry.

“It’s dangerous and hazardous to the health of the people in many ways.”

Added to Jerusalem’s sewage along the stream’s 30 km (19 mile) descent through the occupied West Bank is effluent from Bethlehem and nearby Arab villages.

Plants grow anomalously in what should be a dry wadi, animals come to drink, and mounds of baby wipes flushed down thousands of toilets sporadically coagulate along the banks. Sewage seeps into the earth, risking contamination of ground water.

Toward the end of the journey it gathers in a makeshift collection pool and much is used to irrigate date trees, which have a high tolerance for pollutants. But every so often gravity pulls the refuse toward the lowest spot on earth, the Dead Sea.

“It’s like a brown stain,” Goldberger said. “It stays disconnected from most of the salty water of the Dead Sea.”

With Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at an impasse, projects that require even minor cross-border coordination seldom get done. Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war, but under interim peace deals the Palestinians exercise limited self-rule in part of the territory.

“After decades of not being able to solve the problem, for a thousand and one reasons, professional and political, we reached an agreement for building a pipeline in the valley,” Major General Yoav Mordechai, the coordinator of the Israeli government’s activities in the West Bank, told Reuters.

The Palestinian Water Authority said the agreement was reached out of an “interest to clean the area,” but emphasized the two sides were working separately.

While they are both are optimistic, some scepticism remains, since similar plans in past never gained traction.

“We were talking about it, planning it, every time it took two, three, four years. You think you have it, and then the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a truck coming at you,” said Goldberger.

“I hope this solution will reach the stage where it is built.”

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Thousands rally in Istanbul against Israel’s Al-Aqsa mosque measures

By Murad Sezer and Mehmet Emin Caliskan

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Thousands of people rallied in Turkey’s largest city on Sunday against security measures Israel has imposed at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, shortly after Israel removed other measures that led to two weeks of violent Palestinian protests.

The rally in Istanbul, called “The Big Jerusalem Meeting” and organized by Turkey’s Saadet Party, drew some five thousand people to the Yenikapi parade ground on the southern edge of Istanbul.

Protesters were brought in by buses and ferries from across the city, waved Turkish and Palestinian flags, and held up posters in front of a giant stage where the chairman of the Saadet party and representatives from NGOs addressed the crowd.

“The Al-Aqsa mosque is our honor,” read a poster.

“You should know that not only Gaza, but Tel Aviv also has their eyes on this parade ground. Netanyahu does as well, and he is scared”, said Saadet Party Chairman Temel Karamollaoglu, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Turkey has opposed the security measures installed at the entry points of the mosque compound, with President Tayyip Erdogan warning Israel that it would suffer most from the dispute.

Erdogan accused Israel of inflicting damage on Jerusalem’s “Islamic character”, in comments that Israel’s foreign ministry called “absurd”.

The dispute over security at the mosque compound – where Israel installed metal detectors at entry points after two police guards were shot dead this month – has touched off the bloodiest clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in years.

On Friday however, the main prayer session at the Al-Aqsa mosque ended relatively calmly after Israel removed the tougher security measures, though it barred entrance to men under age 50.

Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City and the holy compound, in the 1967 Middle East war. It annexed the area in a move that has never been recognized internationally.

Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine, sits in the heart of the Old City. It is also the holiest place in Judaism – the venue of two ancient temples, the last destroyed by the Romans. Jews pray under heavy security at the Western Wall at the foot of the elevated plaza.

(Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu, editing by Larry King)

Jordanian protesters at Israeli embassy call for ending peace treaty

Protestors chanting slogans during a demonstration near the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan July 28, 2017. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

AMMAN (Reuters) – Protesters gathered near the Israeli Embassy in the Jordanian capital Amman on Friday, angry that an Israeli embassy guard who shot dead a Jordanian had returned to Israel and been granted diplomatic immunity.

A Reuters witness said around 200 people had assembled peacefully in the vicinity of the embassy. Scores chanted, “Death to Israel,” and called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and scrapping of an unpopular peace treaty with Israel.

A heavy Jordanian police presence had sealed off the area around the embassy so the protesters gathered nearby.

On Sunday an embassy guard shot dead Jordanian teenager Mohammad Jawawdah as well as the landlord of the house in the compound where the guard lived. Israel said the guard had been defending himself after Jawawdah assaulted him with a screwdriver in a “terrorist attack”.

Jordan’s King Abdullah angrily demanded on Thursday that Israel put the guard on trial.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the guard a hero’s embrace after Israel brought him home under diplomatic immunity. King Abdullah said Netanyahu’s behavior was “provocative on all fronts and enrages us, destabilize security and fuels extremism”.

(Reporting by Suleiman al Khalidi in Amman; Writing by Lisa Barrington in Beirut; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Israel bans men under 50 from disputed Jerusalem holy site on Friday

Palestinians react as a stun grenade explodes in a street at Jerusalem's Old city outside the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, after Israel removed all security measures it had installed at the compound. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel sent extra police into Jerusalem on Friday and said men under the age of 50 would be banned from the Old City’s Al-Aqsa mosque for the day in anticipation of more mass protests.

Tensions have been high at the compound for two weeks, often erupting into clashes, after two Israeli police officers were killed there, prompting Israel to install metal detectors at the entrance to the site and a subsequent Muslim boycott.

Under immense diplomatic pressure Israel removed the metal detectors on Thursday, a move welcomed by the Arab world, but violence quickly returned when thousands of Muslim worshippers surged into the mosque.

Before Israel removed the new security apparatus, Palestinian factions had called for a “day of rage” on Friday.

“Security assessments were made and there are indications that disturbances and demonstrations will take place today,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

“Extra police and border police are in and around the Old City and will respond to any disturbances.”

He said women of all ages will be allowed into the site, referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City and the holy compound, in the 1967 Middle East war. It annexed the area in a move that has never been recognised internationally.

Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine, sits on a tree-lined marble plateau in the heart of the Old City. It is also the holiest place in Judaism – the venue of two ancient temples, the last destroyed by the Romans. Jews pray under heavy security at the Western Wall at the foot of the elevated plaza.

The dispute, like many in the Holy Land, is about more than security devices, taking in issues of sovereignty, religious freedom, occupation and Palestinian nationalism.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Muslim elders urge return to prayer as Israel backs down over Al-Aqsa

Palestinian women shout slogans after a prayer outside the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City July 27, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

By Luke Baker and Ali Sawafta

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Muslim elders urged worshippers to return to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on Thursday after Israel backed down in the face of 10 days of often-violent protests and removed all security measures it had installed at the site.

Israel’s decision marks a significant climbdown by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and comes after days of diplomatic effort by the United Nations, the involvement of President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy and pressure from countries in the region including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The dispute began after Israel installed metal detectors, cameras and steel barriers at Muslim entrances to Al-Aqsa compound, also known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, following the July 14 killing of two Israeli policemen by Arab gunmen who had concealed weapons there.

The extra security provoked days of unrest, with violent clashes on the streets of East Jerusalem. Israeli forces shot and killed four Palestinians in the fighting, and a Palestinian man stabbed and killed three Israelis in their home.

Most Muslims have refused to enter the compound for the past two weeks, instead praying in the streets around the Old City.

But Muslim elders declared themselves satisfied that Israeli authorities had reverted to how security was before July 14.

“The technical report showed that all obstacles the occupation (Israel) put outside Al-Aqsa mosque were removed,” said Abdel-Azeem Salhab, the head of the Waqf, the Jordanian-funded trust that oversees Jerusalem’s Muslim holy sites.

“We praise this stand in the past two weeks outside Al-Aqsa and we want this stand to continue outside Al-Aqsa and now inside Al-Aqsa,” he said, urging worshippers to return to pray.

Palestinian political factions issued statements supporting the Waqf announcement, which may help quell the unrest. Before the announcement, factions had been calling for a “day of rage” on Friday, which would probably have fueled the violence.

Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 and has been custodian of holy sites in Jerusalem since 1924, said Israel’s removal of the security measures were an “essential step to calm the situation”.

Saudi Arabia said King Salman had been in contact with the United States and other world powers to try to defuse the tensions and had “stressed the need for the return of calm”. It called for respect for the sanctity of the compound.

“King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, has held contacts with many world leaders over the past few days,” an announcement from the Saudi royal court, published by state news agency SPA, said.

MULTI-FACETED DISPUTE

Palestinian political factions were quick to highlight what they saw as a victory over Israel, with Netanyahu regarded as having backed down. A spokesman for Netanyahu declined to comment on the decision, but the right-wing criticized him.

“Israel is emerging weakened from this crisis, to my regret,” said Education Minister Naftali Bennett, whose right-wing faction is in Netanyahu’s coalition and is a potential challenger for the leadership.

“The truth must be stated. Instead of bolstering our sovereignty in Jerusalem, a message was relayed that our sovereignty can be shaken,” he said.

Netanyahu had insisted that the extra security was needed to ensure safety at the site, which is also popular with tourists. But by taking the steps to bolster security, Israel was materially changing the sensitive status quo, which has governed movement and religious practice for decades.

The Noble Sanctuary contains Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam, and the golden Dome of the Rock. The area, which sits on a tree-lined marble plateau in the heart of the Old City, is also holy in Judaism, as the site of two ancient temples and is referred to by Jews as Temple Mount.

The dispute, like many in the Holy Land, is about more than security devices, taking in issues of sovereignty, religious freedom, occupation and Palestinian nationalism.

Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City and the holy compound, in the 1967 Middle East war. It annexed the area and declared it part of its “indivisible capital”.

That has never been recognized internationally, with the United Nations and others regarding East Jerusalem as occupied by Israel and maintain that the status of the city can only be determined through negotiations between the parties.

Palestinians do not recognize Israel’s authority in East Jerusalem, which they want as the capital of a future Palestinian state, and are extremely sensitive to the presence of Israeli security forces in and around the Noble Sanctuary.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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