Over 3,500 said to visit Temple Mount today, setting new record

The number of Jewish pilgrims who ascended the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to mark Tisha B’Av today set a new record, rising 32% from its previous high last year, according to the Temple Mount Administration, an activist group which facilitates Jewish visits to the flashpoint site.

According to the organization, 3,527 pilgrims visited the site on the Jewish fast day, marking the destruction of both Jewish Temples in ancient times.

The Temple Mount site, also known as the Al-Aqsa Compound, was the location of both Jewish temples and today houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine. Jewish prayer is nominally forbidden at the site, per an unwritten status quo agreement between Israel and Jordan, which administers the site through the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf.

Israeli police have in the past ejected or detained Jewish visitors caught praying on the Temple Mount. But this policy has fallen to the wayside over the past three years under the direction of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has repeatedly called on law enforcement to allow Jewish prayer there.

Ben Gvir earlier today led morning prayers aloud atop the Temple Mount, marking the first time a government minister has prayed overtly at the site.

Likud MK Osher Shkalim also ascended the Temple Mount and took a picture of himself prostrating there, another flagrant violation of the fragile status quo. He later tweeted that “it is a great privilege to go up and prostrate on the Temple Mount on Tisha B’Av.”

A spokesman for the Temple Mount Administration tells The Times of Israel that he is not aware of any arrests of Jewish visitors at the site today. Police have yet to respond to a request for comment.