Israel hits back at ‘false accusations & distortions’ after 13 Arab states condemn changes to Temple Mount status quo

Israel strongly denied claims advanced by thirteen Arab states, and the Palestinian Authority, who alleged that Jerusalem was working to “alter the Arab Islamic and Christian identity” of Jerusalem in a joint statement following a meeting hosted by Jordan.

The statement “is built on false accusations, historical distortions, and a complete disregard for the facts,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry declared.

The Jordanian Kingdom, which sees itself as the protector of the holy sites in Jerusalem, had convened a meeting of foreign ministers of an Arab Ministerial Committee, tasked with “mobilizing international action in response to illegal Israeli policies and measures in occupied Jerusalem.”

It was attended by representatives of Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Egypt and Morocco, as well as Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, as well as the secretary-general of the Arab League, and the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Pakistan, Türkiye and Malaysia.

The imagined or real threat to the “status quo” on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has been used repeatedly over the past decades to mobilize and incite the Arab world against Israel.

Ahead of the meeting, Jordanian officials told the British Guardian that the July 23 visit to the site by more than 2,000 Israelis on the occasion of Tisha Be’av, the Jewish holiday mourning the destruction of the temples, was the most serious violation of the status quo in modern history.

Jewish worshipers ascend Temple Mount on Tisha B'Av, pray and seen here performing the priestly blessing in massive departure from the status quo w/ Jordan, which ostensibly administers the site pic.twitter.com/PkQkuUpkr9

— charlie summers (@cbsu03) July 23, 2026

Under the status quo, religious worship was permitted only for Muslims, while Jews or Christians were not allowed even to bring religious items to the site. However, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has slowly eroded the status quo to allow Jews to pray on the site, and police have increasingly turned a blind eye to Jews praying on the eastern part of the Temple Mount platform.

On July 23, a police spokesman told Times of Israel that around a dozen people were arrested for praying on the western side, noting that police were overwhelmed by the “sheer amount” of worshipers there. The crowd was led by Ben Gvir, who openly used a prayer book to worship.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi told the Guardian, “We warn that tampering with the status quo could trigger a religious conflict that will reverberate beyond Palestine and Jordan into the whole Muslim world.”

Regarding the meeting in Jordan, he said, “We’re trying to explain the danger. We’re protesting legally. We are trying to create awareness of the imminent danger in the continuation of those Israeli measures.”

Its participants agreed to “Condemn all Israeli violations at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif, all attempts to alter its historic and legal status quo and impose temporal and spatial division, including the escalating incursions by extremist settlers, Israeli ministers and officials, facilitated and protected by the Israeli occupation authorities; the accompanying provocative practices and inflammatory statements; restrictions on access for worshippers to the Mosque and assaults against them… and the continued illegal excavations beneath the Mosque and in its vicinity.”

Among a series of other points, they also reaffirmed that “Israel has no sovereignty over” Jerusalem, that the Temple Mount is “a place of worship exclusively for Muslims,” and also condemned ostensible “Israeli violations targeting Christian holy sites and threatening the historic Christian presence in Jerusalem.”

In his own statement, Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned “of the danger of unrest in the region being exploited to create new facts on the ground in Jerusalem.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry, in response, stressed that “it is particularly cynical to accuse Israel of violating freedom of worship while declaring that the entire Temple Mount is a place of worship exclusively for Muslims, ignoring the Jewish people’s historic connection to Jerusalem and its holiest sites.”

“Under Israeli sovereignty, Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the State of Israel, has never been more open and accessible to worshippers of all faiths,” it noted.

“Israel remains committed to preserving freedom of worship, maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount, and taking all necessary measures to ensure public order and the safety of all visitors.”

The Hashemite monarchy maintains its traditional custodianship over Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem despite the capture of the city’s eastern part by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. This role was reaffirmed in the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan.

This also includes that the control and management of the Temple Mount, except for security matters, is in the hands of the Jerusalem Waqf, a religious organization led by an 18-member council and a director, all of whom are appointed and paid by Jordan.