Israel/Palestine

This is an unusual event in the volatile area, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, where Jews are not allowed to pray.

The status quo on the Temple Mount upholds a rule that has effectively existed since 1187, when Muslim warrior Saladin defeated the Christian crusaders and held on to Jerusalem: non-Muslims may enter the sacred compound, but only Muslims can pray.

Before Muslims built the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa mosque in the late 7th and early 8th centuries, two Jewish temples, the second destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, stood at the site, which is both the holiest place in Islam outside Saudi Arabia and the most sacred place in Judaism.

After Israel captured the Old City and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War, it agreed to continue the status quo, recognizing the risks of igniting a religious war if anything were changed. It gave Jordan special responsibility for overseeing the Muslim holy sites via the Waqf, an Islamic trust.

That agreement was reinforced when Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. There have been many periods of friction over the years, but to all intents and purposes, the status quo has held.

Over the last decade or so, since then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the site in 2000, the Waqf says Israel has been slowly chipping away at the rules, with increasing numbers of religious Jews visiting the area and many of them surreptitiously praying.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected those suggestions, saying repeatedly that the government has not changed the rules and has no intention of doing so.

Meanwhile, every week, police detains and at times also arrests right-wing activists on suspicion of praying or violating the rules in another manner.