Jordan condemns closing Aqsa gates, appoints new guards

AMMAN — Jordan on Tuesday condemned the Israeli decision to close some gates of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in the face of worshippers, allowing extremist settlers to storm the mosque under the protection of the occupation forces.

Meanwhile, the government announced that it has appointed new guards to help safeguard the site, which is Islam’s third holiest shrine after Mecca’s Grand Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina.

Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications and Government Spokesperson Mohammad Momani said the Kingdom rejects the Israeli measures, describing them part of the continuous attempts to change reality in the holy shrine in violation of international laws.

He demanded commitment to the outcome of the November 2014 meeting between His Majesty King Abdullah, Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when it was agreed to keep the situation without change in East Jerusalem’s sacred places.

The minister announced that Jordan has hired 52 new employees and guards, through the Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Ministry, and noted that an advertisement was published to appoint 70 others, whose recruitment procedures will be completed soon.

The Awqaf Ministry’s plan is to increase the Jerusalem Awqaf Department's staff members from 850 to over 1,000, the minister, Hayel Dawood, told The Jordan Times on Wednesday.

A total of 300 of the current 850 employees at the department are guards, Dawood said, noting that each staff member costs Jordan JD20,000 annually.

The minister added that the plan is aimed at curbing the frequent storming of Al Aqsa Mosque by Jewish extremists, stressing that it is in line with the Hashemite custodianship over Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites. 

Ahmad Ezzat, the ministry’s spokesperson, told The Jordan Times that the plan entails increasing Al Aqsa Mosque’s guards from 300 to 500 with the aim of enhancing the safety and security of the mosque and worshippers amidst increasing raids of the mosque’s courtyards by Israeli forces and radical Jewish settlers that usually result in clashes with Muslim worshippers.

The ministry started the implementation of the plan following a petition signed by dozens of MPs calling for the increase of safety measures at Al Aqsa Mosque.

According to the official, the guards’ salaries and all costs are covered by the ministry. 

In 2013, Jordan and Palestine signed an agreement under which the Palestinian side reaffirmed the status of His Majesty King Abdullah as the custodian of the holy sites in Jerusalem.

The agreement, Royal Court said then, would help Jordan and Palestine exert all efforts to protect Jerusalem and its holy sites from Israeli escalatory measures and Judaisation policy and safeguard hundreds of waqf properties that are endowed to Al Aqsa Mosque.

Under the deal, King Abdullah enjoys the “full right to exert all legal efforts to safeguard and preserve [Jerusalem’s holy sites], especially Al Aqsa Mosque, defined as the entire Al Haram Al Sharif compound (or the noble sanctuary whose area is estimated at 144 dunums).

The agreement “also reaffirms the historic principles upon which Jordan and Palestine are in agreement as regards Jerusalem and their common goal of defending Jerusalem together, especially at such a critical time, when the city is facing dramatic challenges and daily illegal changes to its authenticity and original identity”.

The two sides also reasserted the status of East Jerusalem as a “Palestinian sovereign occupied territory, and that all post-1967 occupation practices or aggressions against Jerusalem are not recognised by any international or legal entity”. 

Jordan’s guardianship of Jerusalem’s shrines is also provided for in the treaty the Kingdom signed with Israel in 1994.