Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohammad Ishtaye, on Monday accused Israel of “playing a dangerous political game“ at Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem to change the site’s status quo.
Ishtaye told newsmen at the opening of his weekly cabinet meeting in Ramallah city, that the repeated settler incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque was aimed at breaking the historical status quo agreement.
He noted that the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and the Palestinian government were in close coordination with Jordan over the latest developments at the holy religious site.
According to a 1967 agreement between Israel and Jordan that is the custodian of Al-Aqsa Mosque; non-Muslim worshippers can visit the place but are prohibited to pray there.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future independent state, while Israel wants all Jerusalem to be its eternal capital.
However, Israel annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and declared the whole city as its eternal indivisible capital in 1980, but the move had never been recognised by the international community.
