Record 1,236 Jewish visits to Temple Mount on Tisha Be’Av

A record number of Jews visited Temple Mount Tuesday on the annual fast and lamentations day commemorating the destruction of the Jewish Temples. The figure of 1,263 ascended the holy place despite the long wait in sweltering heat for security checks, passage through metal detectors and a pledge not to hold prayers at the Temple site, so as not to anger the Muslims who are allowed to worship at Al Aqsa..

During the day, police keeping a close watch on security at the shrine, where thousands prayed at the Western Wall, detained five people over an altercation between Jews and Muslims.
The Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi said, “The number of extremists storming Al Aqsa reached its highest record since Israel’s 1967 conquest.” He was addressing the Islamic States’ cooperation conference in Istanbul. The Palestinian Authority earlier castigated the Jews praying at the Western Wall, the last relic of the second Temple destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago, for “desecrating the wall of Al Aqsa” in commemoration of their “imaginary temple.”