Hardline Israeli minister visits flashpoint Jerusalem shrine

OCCUPIED Jerusalem — A nationalist hardliner in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government on Sunday visited an ultra-sensitive Jerusalem holy site, ending a longstanding ban on such activity.

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, of the Jewish Home Party, toured Al Haram Al Sharif compound housing Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock without any reported incident.

It is located in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.

The same site is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and is the holiest site in Judaism, revered as the spot where the two biblical Jewish temples once stood.

It is the third-holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina.

Images posted on the right-wing news site Arutz Sheva showed Ariel with the golden-topped Dome of the Rock behind him.

Sharren Haskel, a lawmaker from Netanyahu's Likud Party, also made the pilgrimage Sunday.

"I am very, very moved today," she said in video posted online by Israel's Channel 10 TV station.

Netanyahu barred ministers and legislators from entering the flashpoint compound in October 2015 and only a handful of exceptions have been allowed since then.

The ban was meant to help calm unrest that had erupted in part over Palestinian fears that Israel was planning to assert further control over the compound.

A statement on the Israeli parliament website says visits are being allowed to resume under certain conditions, including making the request 24 hours in advance to allow coordination with occupation authorities.

They would also be limited to no more than one visit every three months, Israeli media reports said.

Israel seized Palestinian East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 War and later annexed it. The move was never recognised by the international community, but Israel declared the city its undivided capital.

The Palestinians see East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.