Itamar Ben-Gvir ascends Temple Mount as Moshe Gafni slams “desecration”

At the end of Ramadan, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir ascended to the Temple Mount this morning (Wednesday), contrary to the rulings of the Chief Rabbinate and Torah sages who forbid it altogether.

For 13 days, the Temple Mount was closed due to the last days of Ramadan and the three days of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

In response to the ascent to the Mount, the chairman of Degel HaTorah and chairman of the Finance Committee, MK Moshe Gafni, attacked Ben-Gvir and called on him to stop going up to the Temple Mount.

"The ascent to the Temple Mount," Gafni says, "is a blow to the sanctity of the holiest place for the Jewish people and to the status quo that all the great leaders of Israel and the chief rabbis throughout the generations have opposed the immigration of Jews to the site."

Gafni went on to turn to Ben-Gvir: "Your going up there involves a severe prohibition of obligating you and all those who accompany you, it does not show sovereignty, on the contrary it constitutes a desecration of the holy and causes unnecessary incitement in the Muslim world and not only in it."

"I call on you to stop going up to the Temple Mount, the site of our Temple," Gafni concluded his statement.

...