Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Metal Detectors Vanish, but Tensions in East Jerusalem Remain

JERUSALEM — The Muslim authorities in Jerusalem instructed worshipers to remain outside the Aqsa Mosque compound on Tuesday, even after Israel removed the metal detectors from entrances to the holy site that had prompted days of violent clashes and bloodshed.

Thousands of Palestinians performed evening prayer in the streets in East Jerusalem as the 11-day crisis teetered between resolution and a broader contest over control of the sacred plateau. After prayer, clashes with the police resumed by the Lion’s Gate of the Old City.

Israel had removed the detectors before dawn, along with some surveillance cameras, after a day of intensive talks with Jordan, the custodian of the shrine, and with American mediation.

But the Islamic Waqf, which administers the day-to-day running of the site, issued a statement saying the boycott would continue pending a review of the situation in and around the mosques, and until Israel restored it to its previous status before the crisis began on July 14.

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said the suspension of ties and security coordination with Israel would also continue until Israel removed all additional security measures from the area and pending an examination of the situation, according to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency. Mr. Abbas spoke at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah before a leadership meeting.

“Now everybody is mobilized,” said Zakaria al-Qaq, a Palestinian professor and expert in national security at Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem. “This is multidimensional,” he said, adding, “Everyone wants to be part of the political equation.”

Mr. Qaq said he believed that calm could be restored if Israel removed every trace of the new equipment it had installed. But pointing to the volatility of the site and its centrality particularly for the Palestinians of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, he said, “Al Aqsa is the last place left for people to express themselves religiously or politically.”

The true test of where things are going may come on Friday. On regular Fridays tens of thousands of Palestinians from Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Arab citizens of Israel, come to pray at the site.

The crisis began on a Friday, with a brazen attack on the morning of July 14, when three armed Arab citizens of Israel emerged from the compound and fatally shot two Israeli Druze police officers who were guarding it. In a rare move, Israel temporarily closed the holy esplanade to conduct searches and quickly installed metal detectors and cameras at some entrances to the site, which is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

Several other entrances to the site for Muslims remained closed. Refusing to pass through the metal detectors, worshipers took the extraordinary step of praying outside.

Immediately after the July 14 attack, Mr. Abbas’s mainstream Fatah party whipped up emotions by calling on Palestinian Muslims via Twitter and Facebook to turn out in large numbers to pray at Al Aqsa in defiance of the Israeli decision to close it, and called the next week for a “Day of Rage.”

Since the metal detectors went up, three members of an Israeli family were stabbed to death in an attack at their home in a West Bank settlement and four Palestinians were killed in clashes with security forces in and around East Jerusalem.

Adding to the predicament, an Israeli security guard in the Israeli Embassy compound in Amman, Jordan, came under attack on Sunday night and opened fire, killing two Jordanians. The ensuing diplomatic standoff with Jordan, an important ally of Israel, precipitated efforts to calm the volatile atmosphere around Al Aqsa.

Hours after the Israeli embassy staff, including the security guard, returned home from Jordan, the Israeli security cabinet decided to replace the metal detectors with less obtrusive security measures it said would be introduced over a period of six months.

Although all visitors to the nearby Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, pass through metal detectors, Palestinians considered the detectors outside Al Aqsa as a symbol of Israel asserting its claim to sovereignty there.

The Israeli police have not specified exactly what will replace the metal detectors, though Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the police, said it might involve “facial recognition” equipment.

The alleyways of Jerusalem’s Old City already bristle with security cameras. But rumors have abounded among Palestinians that Israel will now install X-ray cameras around the mosque compound capable of seeing through clothing, fueling new tensions in a conservative society where many women wear long robes and head coverings.

The police issued a denial on Tuesday, saying in a statement: “The Israel Police does not use any type of camera that harms privacy in any way and has no intention of using such cameras in the future. The purpose of the cameras is to protect and guard public safety.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: Metal Detectors Vanish, But Tensions Remain At Jerusalem Holy Site. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT