Occupied Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday defended his decision to remove metal detectors from the entrance to Al Haram Al Sharif after deadly unrest, saying it was in the best interest of security.
Israel installed metal detectors and surveillance cameras after a July 14 attack near the Haram Al Sharif, in which gunmen killed two policemen.
The move sparked Palestinian protests and deadly unrest, and the government removed the detectors on Tuesday as well as the cameras.
That, however, brought fierce criticism from the far-right flank of Netanyahu’s own conservative coalition.
A poll of Israeli Jews found 77 per cent thought the move constituted “capitulation”, while even the normally pro-Netanyahu newspaper Israel Hayom attacked his handling of the crisis.
“I listen to the sensitivities of the public, I understand their feelings, I know that the decision we took is not an easy one,” he said at the start of Sunday’s cabinet meeting — his first public comment on the removal of all the so-called security measures.
“At the same time, as prime minister of Israel, I am obliged to take decisions in a calm and considered way. I do that with a view to the big picture,” he said.
Palestinians saw the new measures as Israel asserting further control over the holy site, the third holiest in Islam, which houses the revered Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
It is located in Occupied East Jerusalem, captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 war and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.
Muslims refused to enter the shrine and prayed in the streets outside for more than a week.
Protests and deadly unrest erupted in the days after the measures were installed, with clashes breaking out around the compound in Occupied Jerusalem’s Old City, in the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.
Seven Palestinians were killed in clashes.