Israeli MP allowed visit to flashpoint Jerusalem holy site

An Israeli parliamentarian who supports Jewish prayer at an ultra-sensitive Jerusalem holy site was permitted a one-off visit Wednesday despite a two-year ban for lawmakers.

Yehuda Glick of the ruling Likud party received special permission from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the Haram al-Sharif compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount, ahead of his son's wedding.

In a tweet, Glick warmly thanked Netanyahu, saying it was "a wonderful gift for my son's wedding, a very significant human gesture to me".

Glick, who was shot in 2014 over his campaign for Jewish prayer rights at the site prior to joining parliament, has petitioned the supreme court against Netanyahu's October 2015 decision to ban lawmakers from visiting the volatile complex.

The ban was meant to help calm unrest that erupted in part over Palestinian fears that Israel was planning to assert further control over the compound.

Located in the Old City of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, it houses the Al-Aqsa mosque complex and the Dome of the Rock.

Plans to allow a temporary lifting of the ban in July were put off after violence again erupted in and around the site. In August, Netanyahu lifted the ban for one day as a test.

The site is the holiest in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam after Mecca and Medina.

It is central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A spokesman for Glick said the lawmaker was informed there was currently no change in the government's policy on forbidding MPs from visiting the site.

Source: AFP