VIDEO. Jerusalem: controversial visit by the Israeli Minister of National Security to the esplanade of the Mosques

Figure of the Israeli far right and new Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, on Tuesday made a brief trip to the esplanade of the Mosques in East Jerusalem, a holy place at the heart of Israeli-Palestinian tensions, arousing a wave of condemnation .

The third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site in Judaism known as the "Temple Mount", the Esplanade of the Mosques is located in the Old City of Jerusalem, in the Palestinian sector occupied and annexed by Israel.

Ben Gvir, known for his anti-Palestinian diatribes, had announced his intention to visit the holy site, and the Palestinian group Hamas, in power in Gaza and Israel's pet peeve, had warned that such a visit would risk being " a prelude to an escalation”.

A lawyer by training, Itamar Ben Gvir became a deputy in April 2021, after years of campaigning on the far right.

This father of six children, who lives in one of the most radical settlements in the occupied West Bank, defends the annexation by Israel of this territory where 2.9 million Palestinians live.

He also advocates the transfer of part of the Arab population of Israel, considered disloyal, to neighboring countries.

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Under a historic status quo, non-Muslims can visit the site of the Esplanade des Mosques at specific times but cannot pray there.

However, in recent years, a growing number of Jews, often nationalists, surreptitiously pray there, a gesture denounced as a “provocation” by the Palestinians and Arab countries.

"Our Palestinian people will continue to defend their holy places and the Al-Aqsa mosque," said Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem, calling the Israeli leader's visit a "crime."

This is an "unprecedented provocation," said the Palestinian Foreign Ministry in Ramallah, in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel.

Itamar Ben Gvir, who previously visited the site as an MP, pleads for Jews to be allowed to enter and pray on the esplanade, which the Israeli rabbinate opposes.

“What will people say when they see a minister, an observant Jew, who flouts the position of the rabbinate,” wrote Yitzhak Yossef, a Sephardic chief rabbi, in a letter to Mr. Ben Gvir.

In 2000, the visit of Ariel Sharon, then head of the right-wing opposition, to the esplanade, led to bloody clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police, marking the start of the second Intifada.