The Israel Police will deploy around 3,000 personnel, including Border Police officers, throughout Jerusalem on March 7, to secure prayers for the first Friday of Ramadan.
Police “will operate with reinforced forces, particularly at the crossings around Jerusalem’s perimeter, in the eastern part of the city, and in the alleyways of the Old City, to maintain public safety and security, direct and regulate traffic and enable freedom of worship in accordance with the necessary security and safety aspects,” the Israel Police said on Thursday.
On Friday, security in the capital will be tightened to “prevent attempts by hostile elements to exploit the days of the Ramadan month for incitement, disorder, terrorism or any form of violence,” it stressed.
The Israel Police statement said security forces “continue to act to allow the large numbers of worshippers to visit the holy sites safely, while balancing freedom of worship with security and safety needs.”
During Ramadan, which started last week, 10,000 Muslims at a time from Judea and Samaria will be allowed to pray at the Temple Mount—Judaism’s holiest site (which is also home to the Al-Aqsa mosque, built on top of the Jewish holy site).
Terrorists released from jail as part of the current hostage agreement with Hamas in Gaza and who were allowed to return to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria have been banned from Mount. It is not clear if that will stop them, as terrorists who were supposedly expelled to the third-party countries were spotted in Gaza.
Ahead of the Islamic holy month, the Hamas terrorist group aimed to incite a wave of terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, including on the Temple Mount.
On Feb. 27, Harun Nasser al-Din, who oversees Hamas’s Jerusalem office but has been based abroad in recent months, called for a “full confrontation against the occupation’s incursions, an uprising against its projects, and no surrender to attempts at Judaization and expulsion.”
The terrorist group also said that it viewed the restrictions on the number of Arab worshippers as “a dangerous escalation and precedent aimed at undermining freedom of worship at Al-Aqsa mosque.”
In related news, local authorities in the Judea city of Hebron announced that the Tomb of the Patriarchs—Judaism’s second-holiest site, where the biblical matriarchs and patriarchs are buried—would be closed to Jewish worshippers on Friday due to Ramadan prayers.
Instead, Shabbat prayers will be held in the eastern foyer and on the seventh step of a staircase outside the building, authorities said.
The infamous seventh step is the closest Muslims would allow the Jews to get to the tomb until the Jewish site was liberated in 1967.
