LONDON: Jordan has warned that recent Israeli actions at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound suggest an Israeli takeover of the site could be “imminent,” raising fears that altering its longstanding status quo could ignite a wider religious conflict, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Jordan is preparing to convene an emergency meeting of Arab and Islamic foreign ministers on Wednesday to coordinate a response, according to the report.
“We warn that tampering with the status quo ... could trigger a religious conflict that will reverberate beyond Palestine and Jordan into the whole Muslim world,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told The Guardian.
“We’re trying to explain the danger. We’re protesting legally. We are trying to create awareness of the imminent danger in the continuation of those Israeli measures.”
He said recent developments at the site, including frequent incursions by Israeli ministers and religious activists, risk triggering a broader religious conflict across the region.
The warning follows a July 23 incursion into the compound by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and thousands of Jewish extremists, who entered the site under police protection, prayed, waved Israeli flags and sang the national anthem, prompting widespread condemnation from Arab and Muslim countries.
Jordanian officials have also expressed concern over reports of efforts to recruit a dedicated police unit for the Temple Mount, the name by which Jews refer to the site, and fear further challenges to Jordan’s custodianship during major Jewish holidays later this year.
Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, is Islam’s third-holiest site and one of the most sensitive religious locations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and later annexed it in a move not recognized by most of the international community.
However, Jordan has served as custodian of Jerusalem’s Islamic and Christian holy sites for more than a century under a role reaffirmed in its 1994 peace treaty with Israel.
Now the country fears Israel is moving closer to changing the longstanding arrangements governing the compound, under which the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, administered by Jordan, oversees the site while non-Muslims are permitted to visit during designated hours, but not pray there.
Safadi said Wednesday’s emergency meeting would bring together foreign ministers from Arab League member states as well as Turkiye, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan to discuss what Jordan views as an increasingly urgent situation.
The foreign minister also voiced concerns over Israel’s attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians from the occupied West Bank into Jordan, warning that it would cross a “red line” for his country and risk further destabilizing the region.
“Our position that this is a red line that we will not allow to be crossed. We have made that known to everybody that we will do whatever it takes to prevent any attempt at Israeli displacement of Palestinians into Jordan,” he said.
“Not only will that be a violation of international law and of the right of the Palestinians to stay on their land, but that will also be a tremendous escalation.”
