"Israel maintains the status quo and will not change it."
These words of the head of Israeli diplomacy Yaïr Lapid, Sunday April 24, concern access to the Esplanade of the Mosques of Jerusalem also known under the name of "Mount of the Temple" in Judaism.
Only Muslims can access this third holiest site in Islam.
After deadly attacks in Israel, including two perpetrated by Palestinians, then heavy-handed operations by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank, violence erupted in mid-April at the esplanade of the Mosques in Jerusalem, raising fears of a new escalation. violence between Israel and Palestinian armed movements.
Still on Friday, more than 50 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli police, who said they intervened after young "rioters" threw stones from the esplanade towards the Wailing Wall below .
The esplanade of the Mosques is located in the eastern, Palestinian portion of Jerusalem, occupied since 1967 by the Jewish state.
This Muslim holy site is administered by Jordan, but its access is controlled by Israel.
The deployment of Israeli police forces on the Esplanade of the Mosques, and on occasion in the local Al-Aqsa mosque, is "justified" in the circumstances, Yair Lapid said.
"The police intervened because there were hundreds of rioters dispatched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad," Yair Lapid said.
"I believe (that this deployment) was justified because it made it possible to avoid a disaster (...) in fact it made it possible to save lives", affirmed Yaïr Lapid while the Israeli authorities fear new tensions in Jerusalem .
With AFP
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