Categories: News Briefs / Jerusalem / The Temple Mount / Israeli Arabs / Intifada

Arab Sources: Islamic Waqf Officials Arrested for Attacking, Robbing French Tourist on Temple Mount

|

August 4, 2015, 4 PM ET

Print

This report is a followup to this morning's JewishPress.com report about the French tourist who was beaten on the Temple Mount by a Muslim mob. It remained unclear by Tuesday evening whether the group of Muslim assailants were simply detained by police or actually arrested, and it was still unconfirmed whether those men are officials with the Islamic Waqf or not. If they are Waqf officials, the police and the government likely wish to minimize the publicity in order to not exacerbate ongoing tensions. According to Arab sources, however, six Waqf officials were arrested.

(JNi.media) Six members of the Muslim Waqf agency are under arrest on suspicion that they attacked a French tourist who raised the Israeli flag on Temple Mount, according to Israeli social media rumor. One suspect tried to rob the tourist while he was lying on the ground.

A French tourist on Tuesday morning raised an Israeli flag in the plaza outside the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount and was brutally beaten by agents of the Muslim Waqf which controls the compound.

The tourist was arrested by Israeli police, who latyer released a statement saying that a young man “who broke the rules for visitors was detained on Temple Mount.”

Over the past week, Israeli police has been busy blocking a variety of Israelis from entering Temple Mount, including an IDF soldier tried to enter wearing his uniform, and a bride on her wedding day.

On Tuesday, Israel’s police decided to act in a case of a foreign national who had been thrown on the ground and beat up. In keeping with the rules of proportionate response, police arrested the tourist who got beaten, as well as the six men who attacked him.