Fueling fears of an escalation, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would halt security ties with Israel until it scraps the walk-through gates installed at entrances to Al-Aqsa mosque plaza after two police guards were shot dead on July 14.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to convene his security cabinet at 7.30 p.m. (1630 GMT) to weigh alternatives.
However, his right-wing government is wary of being seen to yield to Palestinian pressure over the site, which Jews revere as the vestige of their two ancient temples and which was among areas of East Jerusalem that Israel captured in a 1967 war and annexed as its capital in a move not recognized internationally.
“They (metal detectors) will remain. The murderers will never tell us how to search the murderers,” Tzachi Hanegbi, Israeli minister for regional development, told Army Radio.
“If they (Palestinians) do not want to enter the mosque, then let them not enter the mosque.”
Incensed at what they perceive as a violation of delicate decades-old access arrangements at Islam’s third-holiest site, many Palestinians have refused to go through the metal detectors, holding street prayers and often violent protests.
Israeli security forces shot three demonstrators dead on Friday, Palestinian medics said. Police said they were investigating the charge. A fourth Jerusalem-area Palestinian was killed on Saturday when an explosive device he was building went off prematurely, the Israeli military said. Palestinian medics said he died of shrapnel wounds to the chest and abdomen.