Hundreds of Israeli settlers entered Al Aqsa Mosque compound on Thursday under police escort. Their national security minister was among them. Itamar Ben-Gvir prayed, sang and declared that the site belonged to Israel. For a man who controls the police force that cleared the way for this display, the distinction between a personal visit and state policy is hardly worth making.
Since 1967, non-Muslims have been permitted to visit the compound during prescribed hours, while Muslim worship has remained protected and the Jordanian Waqf has retained responsibility for its religious administration. Jewish prayer there has long been prohibited under this arrangement. Israel’s own governments have repeatedly pledged to uphold it.
That formula has been fraying in full view. Ben-Gvir does not operate from the margins of Israeli politics. He is a cabinet minister whose ministry commands the police deployed at Al Aqsa. More worryingly, Gvir has stormed the site more than a dozen times, previously using gatherings to call for tougher action against Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has, in the past, insisted that there has been no change in the status quo. That assurance rings hollow because just as the prime minister disavows a formal decision, his senior minister normalises the conduct that would once have required one.
The timing also carries a message beyond the Old City. Israel is pressing ahead with settlement expansion in the West Bank, widening its control over Palestinian land and weakening whatever remains of the political geography required for a viable settlement. Al Aqsa occupies a singular place in the Muslim world, yet any attempt on its sovereignty forces one to introspect how the same Israeli coalition that treats Palestinian territory as available for unilateral redesign is now testing whether the mosque compound can be subjected to a similar politics of attrition.
Pakistan’s joint statement with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt and Indonesia was therefore necessary. It brought together states with sharply different relations with Israel and Washington, united by a line that ought never to have become contentious: occupied Jerusalem cannot be remade through police-backed religious theatre. Jordan’s voice matters especially. Its custodial role at Al Aqsa is recognised in its peace treaty with Israel, and its warnings are rooted in obligations Israel accepted in writing.
Yet the real audience for the statement sits in Western capitals. They have spent years counselling regional restraint while treating Israeli violations in Jerusalem as a matter for carefully worded concern. That indulgence has encouraged Israeli powerbrokers to carry on with their own vendettas.
No one familiar with Jerusalem needs to be told why Al Aqsa is sensitive.A much more piercing question is whether states claiming to defend order will allow an Israeli minister to dismantle that order one escorted incursion at a time. *