4 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The United Nations Security Council will convene an extraordinary session on the occasion of the visit this Tuesday of Israel’s new Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, to the Esplanade of the Mosques, an action that has provoked international condemnation.
The meeting of the UN body does not have an official date, but it could take place this Thursday, according to what a diplomat has declared to the newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’.
The spokesperson for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) mission at the UN, Shadad Matar, has reported that her country, together with China, has called for an urgent meeting of the Security Council due to the concerns raised by the visit to the mosque. from al-Aqsa.
Ben Gvir visited the holy site assuring that the Israeli government “will not give in to threats from Hamas,” amid warnings of a possible rise in tensions if he entered the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
Following this, Arab and Muslim countries have branded the visit of Israel’s newly appointed Minister of National Security as a “provocation”, while the Jordanian government has summoned the Israeli ambassador to personally convey its discomfort over the “assault”.
In the eyes of Jordan, which acts as custodian of the place, the Israeli government “bears full responsibility for the consequences” that may derive from the actions of the leader of Otzma Yehudit.
For his part, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has stressed his commitment to maintaining the ‘status quo’ in the holy place.
Israel took control of the Temple Mount and the rest of the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six Day War (1967). However, it allowed Jordan to continue to maintain religious authority at the site and, under the peace agreement, recognized Jordan’s “special role” over “Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.”
