Itamar Ben-Gvir Storms Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem During Jerusalem Day March

Israeli far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stormed the esplanade of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem on Tuesday, entering the mosque’s precinct in the afternoon escorted by Israeli police forces, according to the Department of Islamic Waqfs in Jerusalem.

The Anadolu Ajansı report said Ben-Gvir’s incursions are typically carried out without any prior public announcement and that since taking office in early 2023 he has stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque about 14 times, with Tuesday’s intrusion marking his first entry to the site in 2026.

5Pillars

In a separate account of the same broader period of Jerusalem Day tensions, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency described far-right activists chanting “death to Arabs” and clashing ahead of the annual “Dance of the Flags” march through the Old City, with police describing the clashes as “isolated” and leading to the arrest of 13 people.

The Guardian reported that Thursday’s event culminated with Ben-Gvir unfurling an Israeli flag in front of the al-Aqsa mosque, and it quoted a 19-year-old marcher, Ariel Amichai, saying, “That they must leave. This is our country.”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency said the march followed Ben-Gvir’s gesture in which he displayed a large Israeli flag atop the Temple Mount and declared the site “in our hands,” while it reported that journalists, left-wing activists and Arab residents faced assaults during the procession.

Daniel Eldunne, the Israel Police international spokesman, told JTA, “The main focus of today is heritage and unity,” while the same report said extremists broke into chants including “Death to Arabs” and “May your village burn.”

Al Jazeera

The Guardian described Israeli nationalists chanting “death to the Arabs”, “may your villages burn” and “Gaza is a graveyard” in a state-sponsored march through Jerusalem to mark the anniversary of the city’s capture and annexation.

It also reported that police entered the city that afternoon in force after far-right radical Jewish groups scuffled with Palestinian residents, with both sides throwing chairs at each other until separated by police.

Jordan and Egypt condemned Ben-Gvir’s storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and settlers waving the Israeli flag in its courtyards, with the Jordanian Foreign Ministry describing it as an “unacceptable provocation, and a flagrant violation of the historical and legal status” in Jerusalem.

The same WAFA-linked account said Ben-Gvir stormed the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Thursday evening under heavy security protection, and it reported that the Jerusalem Governorate said he raised the Israeli flag inside the compound and carried out provocative acts and dances during the incursion.

Al Jazeera’s broader framing of the conflict is absent from the provided materials, but the sources here explicitly connect the Jerusalem escalation to the wider war context, with the Jordanian statement warning that the practices “ignite anger and heighten tensions and instability in the Palestinian territories and the region at large, especially amid the ongoing dangerous escalation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”

The Anadolu Ajansı report also tied the holy-site clashes to a legal backdrop, citing an International Court of Justice advisory opinion issued in July 2024 that declared the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.