Netanyahu says no change at Al-Aqsa after Ben-Gvir's remarks

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday there was no change in policy at a sacred Jerusalem site, after a far-right cabinet minister said Jews could now pray there, remarks that another minister said could set the region ablaze.

"Israel's policy of maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount has not changed and will not change," Netanyahu's office said in a statement from Washington, a few hours before he was due to address the U.S. Congress.

Earlier on Wednesday, the pro-settler right-wing National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told parliament: "I am the political echelon, and the political echelon allows Jewish prayer at Temple Mount."

The compound, in Jerusalem's walled Old City, houses Islam's third-holiest shrine, Al-Aqsa mosque, and is also revered in Judaism as the Temple Mount, a vestige of two ancient temples.

Under a delicate decades-old "status quo" arrangement with Muslim authorities, Israel allows Jews to visit but refrain from prayer. The site is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and suggestions that Israel would alter rules about religious observance there have led to violence in the past.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, responding to Ben-Gvir on X, said: "There's a pyromaniac sitting in the Israeli government and trying to ignite the Middle East."

Since bringing Ben-Gvir into government in 2022, Netanyahu has overruled many of his ideas. Since the Oct. 7 attack on Israeli towns that triggered the war in Gaza, Ben-Gvir has been excluded from Netanyahu's decision-making war cabinet.

Gallant said he objected to giving Ben-Gvir a seat. Ben-Gvir, in response, said Gallant was pushing for an irresponsible deal that would end the Gaza war without vanquishing Hamas.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt are mediating a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that would include a hostage release.

Over the past few months, Ben-Gvir has voiced objection to a ceasefire, called for Israel to permanently occupy and settle the Palestinian enclave and has issued threats to bring down Netanyahu's government if it ends the war.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Maayan Lubell; Editing by Alex Richardson and Peter Graff)

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