The Explosive Situation in Jerusalem Is Not Over Yet

• 07.26.2017, 17:12
•  Near East,  World

eTurboNews

ʺIt has been happening here many times before, this particular escalation will pass as well. The area around the old city of Jerusalem has always been explosive, and the slightest thing ignites the flames even harder,ʺ Sivan Gaides, an Israeli Political Scientist said in a talk with ʺArmediaʺ IAA referring to the recent escalation of the situation around Temple Mount.  

According to her, Israel's reaction with the metal detectors was not the most creative one, but it is necessary. ʺHowever, knowing how fragile the situation is, Israel removed the detectors and security cameras in the area of the Mosque,ʺ she added.

It should be reminded that on July 25 Israel’s security cabinet made a decision to remove from the entrances to the Temple Mount the metal detectors and security cameras. According to bridgesforpeace.com, the cabinet also decided to replace the metal detectors and security cameras by intelligent, less obtrusive surveillance technologies and have set aside NIS100 million ($28 million) over a six month period to purchase and install this “smart checking” equipment.

even after the removal of the metal detectors and the cameras, Muslim Arabs refuse to enter the Temple Mount waiting for the Waqf (the Islamic endowment organisation which administers the mosque compound) to give a signal. According to The Times of Israel, a Waqf official revealed that the boycott would continue until all additional security measures were removed.  He called possibility of putting “the new high tech cameras” also unacceptable.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his turn said that he will maintain a freeze on coordination with Israel until it removes "all the new measures from the Al Aqsa Mosque compound.ʺ "Unless all measures go back to what they were before July 14, there will not be any changes," Abbas said, TRT World reports.  

The situation in Jerusalem also became the subject of an emergency meeting of the UN security Council, Arab League and Organization of Islamic cooperation.

In the UN Council meeting, the UN envoy for the Middle East, Nickolay Mladenov stressed that "it is important to find a solution by Friday." 

"The dangers on the ground will escalate if we go through another cycle of Friday prayer without a resolution to this current crisis," he said, warning that violence there could spread "beyond the Middle East itself," he said, m.asianews.it reports. 

Israel installed metal detectors at the entrance to Temple Mount after the killing of two policemen by some Israeli Arabs on July 14.