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At present, the Government of Israel controls access to the Temple Mount, also known as Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, in East Jerusalem's Old City, which is a holy place for Muslims, Jews, and Christians and an Islamic religious endowment under the management of the Jordan-based Jerusalem Islamic Waqf.[1][2] There are entry limits to the Temple Mount for political and security reasons. In addition, Jewish religious law imposes restrictions on religious Jews on entering the compound.
For centuries an absolute ban on non-Muslim access to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount existed. The situation was relatively free of tensions as Jews acquiesced in the exercise of Muslim authority over the site.[3] In 1839, following the Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman establishment and legislation, non-Muslims were permitted to enter Temple Mount, but in order to do so they had to obtain special permit from the governor.[4] Jews who managed to obtain permission to visit the site at that time, such as Moses Montefiore and Baron Rothschild, had themselves carried across the site by Muslims, in order not to violate the rabbinic prohibition against Jews setting foot on the holy ground of the area.[5]
Article 13 of the Mandatory Charter conferred on Britain by the League of Nations explicitly denied its governing body the right to either interfere with the site or the administration of purely Muslim holy places.[3] Jewish requests for access to their holy places during the period of British rule of Palestine were focused on the Western Wall, not on the Temple Mount, which was, in any case, off-limits according to the Jewish prohibition against entering the latter. The struggle between Muslims and Jews was concentrated on the latter's desire to secure regulated access to the wall on the mount's western side.[3] As early as 1920, rabbi Avraham Yitzhak ha-Kohen Kook stated that though in other hands, the Temple Mount would eventually come into Jewish possession, a declaration which was interpreted by the mufti Amin al-Husseini as evidence of a political plot to wrest control of the Haram itself. In the ensuing period, the Temple Mount became something of a "state within a state" which the British authorities would not enter even when it became the centre for the Arab Revolt, until the mufti fled the site.[3] The King's Order-in-Council issued by the government authorities of Mandatory Palestine in 1934 regulated the legal situation of the site by confirming the religious status quo regarding sovereignty reigning from Ottoman times.[6]
At the conclusion of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Haram al-Sharif lay behind the lines held by the Jordanian Legion,[7] and the Jordanian government established the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf to administer the site.[8] From 1948 until Israel captured the site in 1967 during the Six-Day War, Israeli Muslims were unable to enter East Jerusalem and access the Haram al-Sharif,[7] a restriction at times imposed by the Israeli government.[9]
After Israel occupied the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War of June 1967, the site remained under the control of the Jordan-based Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, though control over access to the site passed to Israel.[9] The Israeli government took several measures regarding the Temple Mount designed to reassure the world that it had no intention of making the issue of where the Temple Mount's sovereignty lay until this could be determined in final status negotiations,[6] despite some frustration from within Jewish community over both the humiliating conditions imposed on prior worship at the remnant of the Temple, and a certain desire for revenge, according to Meron Benvenisti.[3] Israel prohibited the flying of an Israeli flag over the site, and refrained from extending a number of Israeli laws, including those governing Holy Places, to the Haram al-Sharif.[6]
Uzi Narkis (then chief of the IDF's Central Command) described the arrangements at the time as follows:[10]
The IDF will clear the Temple Mount platform and will redeploy outside it. The Israeli administration will be responsible for general security, but will not interfere with the internal guarding and the internal inspection of the running of the Mount.
Currently eleven gates are open to the Muslim public. Non-Muslims are permitted to enter only through the Moors' Gate.[11][12][13]
After Israel captured the site in 1967, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel announced that entering the Temple Mount was forbidden to Jews, in accordance with a halakhic prohibition against temei ha'met (impurity by contacting the dead, cemeteries etc.). The ancient ban on Jews, other than a high priest, entering the zone of the Holy of Holies was confirmed, with the consideration also that, since the exact location of the Second Temple was unknown, any Jew walking through the site would be at grave risk of inadvertently treading on the ground of the Holy of Holies in error.
According to Maimonides, all must still show the same respect (fear) for the Temple which it commanded before its destruction. He added that, "[n]o one may enter it except the places that one is permitted to enter."[14] There is an ongoing ideological and halakhic debate whether it is permissible or forbidden to enter the Temple Mount. On one side stand those (mainly Haredi) who prohibit the entry to all persons in all areas of the Mount, in fear that a visitor might enter the Temple location. On the other side, there are those who do not see, based on the same halakha, any wrongdoing in Jews entering the Temple Mount while observing the halakhic purity laws, and getting only to certain areas of the Mount. Additionally there are others (mainly Religious Zionists) who even see visiting the site as a Mitzvah, meaning prayer there should be considered a religious duty.[15]
Christians and Jews may only visit the site as tourists and only for four hours per day five days per week.[16][17] Israel also restricts the number of religious Jews that can visit at a time. Until 2003, it was limited to five; in 2003 it was increased to 10; in 2010 it was increased to 20 and in 2011 it was again increased to 50 at a time.[18]
During times of political tension and fear of riots, Israel has restricted entry of Muslims to men and women over a certain age. The age limit has varied according to decisions taken by security officials. The restrictions do not affect Jews or tourists who can enter regardless of their age.[19] Entry restrictions were frequently imposed during the 2015–2016 wave of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some examples:
The Israeli NOG Emek Shaveh claimed in a report in June 2015 that Israel's entrance restrictions amounted to changing the "status quo" of the Mount:[24]
