Israeli minister Ben-Gvir says he prayed at flashpoint holy site

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00:00Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir says he prayed at the Al-Aqsa

00:06Mosque compound in Jerusalem, upending a decades-old status quo that allows Jews to visit

00:13but not pray there. Afterwards, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that

00:18Israel's policy has not changed and will not change. Gavir said he prayed for Israel's victory

00:25over Hamas in Gaza and for the return of the Israeli hostages still being held by the militant

00:31group. This comes as hospital officials in Gaza say another 23 Palestinians seeking food were shot

00:39dead by Israeli forces. For more on this, I'm joined by our foreign affairs editor, Kedeven Gorchistani.

00:47Welcome back. So tell us why this move has caused so much controversy. Well, the Al-Aqsa Mosque

00:54compound, first of all, is the third holiest site for Muslims. And so it is a very important

01:02site in itself. And you mentioned the status quo agreement. This is an agreement that dates back

01:07to the late 60s. And it states that the compound is administered by this Jordanian religious foundation,

01:16the Waqf. And under that agreement, Jews and other non-Muslims are allowed to go and visit

01:22that site. But they are not to pray on that site. Now, that's exactly what Itamar Ben-Gvir did.

01:31You have to know that in the past, especially in the past few years, there have been other incidents

01:36involving Jews coming there and reportedly trying to pray. There was a sort of a little bit of an

01:44acknowledgement or a tolerance if it was done a little bit secretively. But this is the first time

01:49that Itamar Ben-Gvir does it so blatantly, so openly, leading 1,200 other people there,

01:56bringing the cameras and stating himself that he has prayed there. And so that is what really caused

02:02this outrage from Muslim leaders and Arab leaders. The first one being the Jordanian foreign ministry,

02:10of course, because the Jordanians are the one administering that compound. The Jordanians calling it

02:15a violation of international law, an unacceptable provocation, a reprehensible escalation.

02:21And they insisted that Israel has no sovereignty over that compound. This, of course, hinting at the

02:28fact that not only did Itamar Ben-Gvir go there and pray there, he was escorted by Israeli police. And

02:35that in itself is an issue also. The Palestinian Authority said that this had crossed all of the red line.

02:43And as you said, even the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had to intervene and sort of

02:50backtrack a little bit and say that Israel's policy towards that status quo agreement had not changed.

02:56And he has had to do that in the past because Ben-Gvir has said many, many times that he believes this

03:02agreement shouldn't even exist. And a final note on what happened there that also caused more outrage was

03:09the fact that Itamar Ben-Gvir made a statement there, taped himself speaking there, where he

03:14reiterated calls for Israel to fully occupy Gaza, to destroy Hamas and to encourage the, quote,

03:21emigration of Palestinians. That, of course, is ethnic cleansing that he has called for many,

03:27many times and very publicly.

03:29So he's really pushing boundaries there. Not only that, but in recent days, there's been now some

03:35several videos released from Hamas showing the Israeli hostages that Ben-Gvir is so keen to get

03:42back in dire condition, sparking those protests. Has there been any movement on that front about

03:50getting them back? And what has the Prime Minister said?

03:52Yes, there has been a lot of pressure from Israelis and especially, of course, from the families of the

03:58hostages to get the Israeli government to sort of end the war now and get all of the hostages.

04:06And this comes, of course, with Steve Whitcoff, Trump's envoy to the Middle East, during his trip in

04:12Israel. Yesterday, he met with some of the families of the hostages in private with these families,

04:20but some of them taped the encounter and released some of those recordings to media outlets. And

04:28reportedly, Steve Whitcoff said that we have a very good plan that we're making with the Israeli

04:35government for the reconstruction of Gaza. So they're supposedly already thinking about the

04:39reconstruction of Gaza and says that effectively means the end of the war. He also reportedly said

04:47that somehow Hamas had agreed and said that they were willing to lay down their arms. This was

04:53completely dismissed by the terrorist group who came out and said, absolutely not. We will not give

04:59up our arms until there's an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state. This comes as the Israelis,

05:05with the help of the United States, seem to be pushing even more so towards this all-or-nothing

05:12strategy and negotiation. Right now, or up till now, the strategy has been to try to get

05:18hostages released in sort of incremental groups. Now the Israelis are insisting on the fact that

05:24we've gotten to the point where we want all the hostages out and not in groups. This is, of course,

05:31one of the key sticking points between Hamas and the Israelis. The Israelis say,

05:36we will end the war only when all of the hostages are out. And Hamas says, we will not release all

05:42of the hostages until there is an end to the war. And that really shows where this is becoming sort of

05:49inextricable because none of the sides seems to be willing to budge. Israel's top general saying in a

05:56statement just recently that he believes that they will know very quickly in the next few days whether

06:02an agreement is even possible. And he says, otherwise, the fighting will continue without

06:08rest. If the fighting continues without rest, the Palestinians that are starving are going to continue

06:14to starve. And the 20 live hostages that are currently being held in Gaza will also, as we've

06:21seen on those videos, continue to starve and continue to have their lives in jeopardy.

06:26Yeah, it seems like there's no good options at the moment. Kedavan, thank you so much for joining

06:31us. That's an international affairs editor, Kedavan Gorjastani.

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