An influential Israeli rabbi on Tuesday reaffirmed his opposition to any animal sacrifice on the esplanade of the Mosques, the epicenter of tensions in Jerusalem, after calls from extremist Jews to this effect on the occasion of Passover.
The statement comes as tens of thousands of Muslims are currently gathering there for the fasting month of Ramadan.
Judaism's holiest place
The holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam, the Esplanade of the Mosques, which Jews call "
Temple Mount
", is located in the Old City of Jerusalem, in the Palestinian sector occupied and annexed by Israel.
According to Jewish tradition, the sacrifice of a lamb or a kid during Passover was a religious obligation at the time of the Temple of Jerusalem, destroyed in 70 by the Romans.
A radical Jewish organization, Hozrim Lahar ("
We return to the Temple Mount
") recently called for the sacrifice to be made for Passover, which begins Wednesday evening, promising 20,000 shekels (about 5,100 euros) for anyone who succeeds.
Its director was arrested on Monday as a preventive measure by the police.
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, a member of the Israeli rabbinate and chairman of the Western Wall Foundation, "
will work to prevent animals from being brought
" near the plaza to be sacrificed, according to a statement.
The Foundation "
works in accordance with the directives of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, which through generations has opposed any such act
" in this place, indicates this source.
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On Monday, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Yitzhak Yossef, recalled that Jews were prohibited from going to the esplanade.
Under a status quo decreed after Israel conquered East Jerusalem in 1967, non-Muslims can go there at specific times, without praying there.
But in recent years, a growing number of Jews, often nationalists and escorted by the Israeli police, surreptitiously pray there, which the Palestinians and Jordan - guardian of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem - describe as "provocations
"
.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, warned on Monday against any attempt to "
desecrate the Al-Aqsa mosque
", which "
would fuel an already explosive situation for which the Israeli government bears full responsibility.
".
In May 2021, after violence on the compound and elsewhere in East Jerusalem, Hamas fired rockets into Israel, resulting in an 11-day war.
