A delegation of five Arab members of Knesset was set to leave for Jordan on Sunday for a meeting with King Abduallah II in Amman to discuss the recent escalation in violence on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
The group, from the Joint (Arab) list, will later travel from Jordan to Turkey to confer with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reports said, although a party spokesman said it wasn’t certain that the meeting with the Turkish leader would go ahead.
Both Erdogan and Abdullah have blamed Israel in recent days for the clashes.
Party chairman MK Ahmad Tibi told Israel Radio in an interview that the purpose of the meetings was to discuss the “change in the status quo” at the Temple Mount, which houses the al-Aqsa mosque compound.
The trip comes after nearly a week of daily violence on the Temple Mount, around Jerusalem and in the West Bank. The unrest on the Mount began last Sunday, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, after police, acting on information from the Shin Bet security service, raided the compound and found pipe bombs and other improvised weapons, apparently prepared in advance for a riot to disrupt visits by Jews to the site.
Overnight Saturday two Molotov cocktails were thrown at a building in the Nof Zion neighborhood, a Jewish community that lies in East Jerusalem. One of the incendiary devices caused damage to the building. There were no injuries in the incident and police launched an investigation to trace the perpetrators.
During the night security forces arrested four people on charges of rioting. Two of those detained were minors. In total 27 people were arrested during disturbances over the weekend.
Read more:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-lawmakers-to-confer-with-jordans-king-about-temple-mount/
