{"id":33968,"date":"2019-03-03T21:23:32","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T21:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33968"},"modified":"2019-03-03T21:23:32","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T21:23:32","slug":"israel-slammed-for-banning-top-cleric-from-holy-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33968","title":{"rendered":"Israel slammed for banning top cleric from holy site"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nAMMAN: Jordan\u2019s waqf minister has slammed the Israeli government for barring a top cleric from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque,\u00a0 Islam\u2019s third-holiest site, for 40 days.<\/p>\n

\nJordanian Minister of Waqf Abdel Naser Abu Basel described the temporary ban on Sheikh Abdel Hafiz Salhab, head of the Jerusalem Waqf Council, as \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe Israelis have also ordered his deputy, Najeh Bkeirat, to stay away from Al-Aqsa Mosque for four months.<\/p>\n

\nOther members of the newly established waqf council are to be quizzed too, with Israeli security wanting to question Mahdi Abdul Hadi, the head of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA), and Hatem Abdel Qader, the former Palestinian legislature and senior Fatah activist.<\/p>\n

\nIn a strongly worded statement on the Israeli action, Basel said: \u201cRestricting the head of the waqf who holds diplomatic status, and others, is aimed at ruining the work of the Jerusalem waqf.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt is aimed at crippling the work of the Jerusalem waqf, terrorizing members of the waqf council which was established recently by the Jordanian Cabinet, and is a violation of the Hashemite custodianship of the Islamic and Christian holy places.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe Jordanian minister insisted that the Bab Al-Rahmeh prayer area will stay open to Muslim worshippers. A senior Jordanian Foreign Ministry official told Arab News that Salhab carried a diplomatic passport but did not have diplomatic status.<\/p>\n

\nKhaleel Assali, a newly appointed member in the waqf council, said that during its occupation Israel had never acted in such a way against members of the Jordanian waqf. He told Arab News: \u201cIt is a clear escalation by Israel aimed at frightening the council.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nAssali said the waqf council had taken decisions to repair the prayer hall at Bab Al-Rahmeh but denied it had received any order to close it. \u201cWe open it and close it according to our decisions. At present there is a lot of water and we want to repair the site before opening it for regular prayers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nAnis F. Kassim, editor of the Palestine Yearbook of International Law, told Arab News that holding a diplomatic passport did not make its holder part of the Jordanian diplomatic mission. \u201cSure, the restriction is a kind of a punishment, but it doesn\u2019t reach the level of a diplomatic crisis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNormally host countries have the right to restrict the movement of diplomats accredited to it and in some cases can deport them by considering them persona non grata,\u201d Kassim added. He noted, however, that Salhab\u2019s case was different to most.<\/p>\n

\nDuring a weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday in Ramallah, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah referred to the daily challenges being faced in Jerusalem. \u201cPalestinians are standing up to the Israeli attempts to deny Jerusalem\u2019s Arab and Islamic character, trying to empty it of its original inhabitants and its leaders, to isolate the city and to close Bab Al-Rahmeh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nOfer Zalzberg, International Crisis Group\u2019s senior Middle East and North Africa analyst, called Israel\u2019s restraining orders on the waqf council \u201cunprecedented.\u201d Zalzberg said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be trying to deflect accusations \u201cabout refraining from ordering the police to physically close the building.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AMMAN: Jordan\u2019s waqf minister has slammed the Israeli government for barring a top cleric from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque,\u00a0 Islam\u2019s third-holiest site, for 40 days. Jordanian Minister of Waqf Abdel Naser Abu Basel described the temporary ban on Sheikh Abdel Hafiz Salhab, head of the Jerusalem Waqf Council, as \u201cunacceptable.\u201d The Israelis have also ordered his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}