ABBAS ULTIMATUM
In a sign unrest was spreading, a Palestinian stabbed three Israelis in the occupied West Bank on Friday after vowing on Facebook to take up his knife and heed “Al-Aqsa’s call.” On Sunday, a rocket was launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip but hit an open area, causing no damage, Israel’s military said.
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s public security minister, warned of potential “large-scale volatility” – a prospect made more likely in the West Bank by the absence of Abbas’s help.
“If Israel wants security coordination to be resumed they have to withdraw those measures,” Abbas said in a speech on Sunday, referring to the metal detectors. “They should know that they will eventually lose, because we have been making it our solemn duty to keep up security on our side here and on theirs.”
Erdan said Israel may eventually do away with metal-detector checks for Muslims entering the Al-Aqsa compounds under alternative arrangements under review. Such arrangements could include reinforcing Israeli police at the entrances and introducing CCTV cameras with facial-recognition technologies.
“There are, after all, many worshippers whom the police know, regulars, and very elderly people and so on, and it recommended that we avoid putting all of these through metal detectors,” Erdan told Army Radio, suggesting that only potential trouble-makers might be subjected to extra screening.
Any such substitute arrangement was not ready, he added.
However, the Muslim authorities that oversee Al-Aqsa said they would continue to oppose any new Israeli-imposed measures.
“We stress our absolute rejection of … all measures by the Occupation (Israel) that would change the historical and religious status in Jerusalem and its sacred sites,” the Palestinian grand mufti, acting Palestinian chief justice and Jordanian-run Waqf religious trust said in a joint statement.
Jordan and Turkey, among Israel’s few Muslim interlocutors, have urged the removal of the metal detectors. The Arab League said on Sunday that Israel was “playing with fire.” The U.N. Security Council scheduled a session on the crisis for Monday.
“We are managing this in a level-headed, determined and responsible way,” Netanyahu said in televised remarks before his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.
(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta and Nidal al-Mughrabi; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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