Netanyahu's office rejects Ben-Gvir's comment on prayers at Temple Mount

Israel’s far-right national security minister said Wednesday that Jews are allowed to pray at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, threatening to stoke tensions that are already soaring over the war in Gaza.

Itamar Ben-Gvir has said before it's his policy that Jews should be able to pray at the hilltop compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. But his statement on Wednesday comes at a politically sensitive time, hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress in Washington.

Netanyahu’s office quickly released a statement saying nothing had changed in the decades-old arrangement that prohibits Jewish prayer at the site.

“I am the political echelon and the political echelon permits Jewish prayer there,” Ben Gvir said during a conference focused on Jewish access to the compound.

Since Israel captured the site in the 1967 Mideast war, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there. Perceived encroachments have set off widespread violence on a number of occasions going back decades.