A young Jewish man was arrested on the Temple Mount on Monday.

The young man from Be’er Sheva was visiting the Temple Mount.

When he went up, he was so overcome with emotion over the destruction of the Temple that he couldn’t stop crying, according to reporter Arnon Segel.

The Islamic Waqf agent demanded the man be removed, and the Israeli police complied and removed the young man from the Temple Mount and took down all his details – just for crying, and in case he wanted to visit the Temple Mount again in the future, so they have him on file.

Perhaps we should all feel what he feels during these 9 days towards the loss of our holiest site in Judaism.

A building engineer working for the Islamic Waqf was brought in for questioning by the police today.

The engineer was questioned in connection to construction and and maintenance activities he was undertaking that violated the antiquities law on the Temple Mount.

According to the police, the man was setting up to do work near the Dome of the Rock, on behalf of the Waqf, without obtaining the proper permissions or coordinating with the Israeli authorities.

The engineer and five of his workers were given distancing orders from the Temple Mount for 5 days.

by Michael Bachner/TPS on July 27, 2016 Jerusalem (TPS) – A group of six Israeli archaeologists visiting the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem’s Old City were attacked by employees of the Jordanian Waqf on Wednesday morning. According to the archaeologists, the Waqf officials demanded that the group leave the site after they had thought one of them picked up several olives from the ground.

Two assailants were arrested by the police and taken for questioning, but the Jewish group claims that there were approximately eight assailants in total. They also claimed that the Waqf employees took one of their mobile phones and deleted photos of the incident that had been taken and that police forces only arrived 15 minutes after the incident took place.

While the Jewish group claimed that one of archaeologists was lightly wounded in the incident, the Jerusalem police said that nobody required medical treatment following the attack.

“At first, we were not accompanied by policemen or Waqf officials,” wrote Zachi Dvira, one of the archaeologists who also heads the Temple Mount Sifting Project, on his Facebook page after the incident. “At some point, one of the participants picked up a stone from the ground. A Waqf guard who was watching us from a distance shouted at her not to pick up olives from the ground.”

“Afterwards, they decided we must end our tour even though there was plenty of time left,” he added. “An argument broke out and they became violent. Four of them assaulted one of us (Yuval Markus), tackling him to the ground and hitting him.”

“I wasn’t able to contact the four policemen who were present at the site since they were busy escorting one religious Jew,” added Dvira. “I started filming the incident for deterrence and then they attacked me and grabbed my phone to delete the footage. Only when I threatened to complain to the Waqf director by name did they return the phone. The policemen then finally arrived and arrested two of the seven or eight guards who attacked us.”

The Waqf is an Islamic trust that manages the Temple Mount on behalf of Jordan in accordance with the peace agreement signed with Israel in 1994. Waqf employees closely monitor Jews visiting the holy site and prevent them from praying, bowing, or violating the strict visitation rules imposed upon religious Jews at the site.

“This is outrageous,” Temple Mount Activist Arnon Segal told Tazpit Press Service (TPS). “These attacks could eventually result in death. The Waqf employees are being permitted to act uninhibited, without anyone putting them in their place. Netanyahu even said last week that he wanted to strengthen the Waqf. I wonder when Israeli law enforcement authorities will start enforcing the law instead of preserving international agreements that will not help us.”

The Jerusalem District Police released a statement saying that “two Waqf guards approached a group of visitors and attacked one of them during visitation hours at the Temple Mount. A police force arrested the two Waqf members and took them for questioning. The man who was attacked did not require medical treatment.”

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism though Jewish access to the site is severely restricted. The site is also the third holiest to Muslims, who refer to it as Haram al-Sharif or as the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

On Tuesday the PM’s office instructed the City of Jerusalem to issue a stop-work order against a project that has been under construction for two years, converting an ancient Ottoman structure near the compound’s wall into bathroom stalls and showers for use strictly by Muslim worshipers.

According to Israel Radio, Prime Minister Netanyahu on Tuesday assembled Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan, and Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev, to discuss the offensive Waqf project on the Temple Mount, because it endangers rare archaeological treasures.

The move was appropriate, especially since the Waqf had been constructing those bathrooms, as well as carrying out other projects for two years now without a license. The only question was how come the PM’s office waited for two years to act, after being bombarded with complaints by archaeologists, including the Israel Antiquities Authority, regarding the irreparable damage caused by the Waqf?

It was Yehuda Glick, now an MK, who in 2014 caught Waqf officials red-handed in the act of drilling through the ancient stones of the holy site, using heavy machinery. “They saw me coming and immediately tried to hide. It set off warning bells for me and I started filming straight away,” Glick related back in 2014. “They tried to hide, and then shouted to the policeman who was there that I could not take pictures without their permission. The policeman ignored them.”

Danish reporter ‘Jerusalem Jane’ Kiel announced in a video report on Facebook Thursday morning (April 28) that she was cleared to return to the Temple Mount by police at the precinct near the Jaffat Gate entrance to the Old City.

The move was odd, given that it was Israel Police who removed her from the Temple Mount earlier in the morning at the directive of the Jordanian Islamic Waqf, Kiel said, just shortly before.

“After being forced off the Temple Mount again I just talked to the police,” she wrote in her post. “They checked my passport and, according to them I AM ALLOWED ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT.. “So the Waqf say no, but the Israeli police says yes.

And the fact is, it was the [Israel] police that took me off after the Waqft (sic) told them to… See you up there sometime soon. We will see who is in charge..”

JewishPress.com was unable to reach the Israel Police spokesperson on the incident despite repeated attempts to do so.

Could it be that Israel Police and Jordanian Islamic Waqf security personnel are playing the game of “good cop, bad cop” with international journalists on the Temple Mount these days?

An American Jewish man was arrested on the Temple Mount on Sunday morning after it was noticed that he was quietly murmuring a prayer, according to a TPS report. At this time it is unknown if the arrested man is an Israeli citizen or a tourist.

A second Jew was warned by the Israeli police that he would be arrested if he didn’t stop looking at the Siddur app on his cellphone. He was not arrested as he wasn’t yet praying at that point.

Prime Minister Netanyahu can relax, his status quo has been upheld.

Jordan is demanding that Israel “return jurisdiction” over part of the Western Wall to the Islamic Waqf controlled by Amman.

The demand followed the decision by the Israeli government last week to set aside the southernmost section of the Wall, known as Robinson’s Arch, as a place for mixed-gender prayer. Jordan refers to the same place as the “Umayyad Palaces.”

Jordan contends that the decision violates the jurisdiction of the Waqf Islamic Authority over Jerusalem’s holy places, an agreement made between the two countries in 1967.

On Saturday, Jordanian Minister of Communications and Media Affairs Muhammad Momani “urged Israel not to meddle with the Umayyad Palaces area and to ensure its return under the jurisdiction of the Jordanian Jerusalem Waqf Department, which is the entity responsible for administering and safeguarding the site,” the Jordan news agency Petra reported in the Jordan Times.

“Israeli occupation forces have recently settled internal differences among followers of different Jewish sects at the expense of the area of the Umayyad Palaces,” Petra said.

“Israeli occupation forces had decided to expand a platform to allow more Jewish worshippers into the area. The violation against the Umayyad Palaces is the latest in a long series of assaults and violations against the site. Occupation forces have carried out several excavation works there, destroying Arab and Islamic heritage,” Petra added on behalf of Jordan’s government.

Israel’s government approved plans last week to expand the Western Wall plaza in order to accommodate the increasing demands for non-Orthodox prayer at the site. A small wooden platform at Robinson’s Arch has already been set up for mixed-gender prayer.

Jordan’s lamentation over Israeli “occupation” is a bit spurious, given the Hashemite tenure itself as custodian over parts of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria lasted only from 1948 to 1967 – a total of 31 years.

Jerusalem has long since been reunited and whole for a period much longer than that: June 2017 will mark half a century since the restoration of the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and elsewhere in Jerusalem and the Land to the Jewish State of Israel.

However, to be fair, the dismay of the Hashemite Kingdom over the compromise over non-Orthodox prayer allowed by the government is also reflected among some Muslims in Israel and ironically is shared with some observant Jews locally and globally as well.

Mixed-gender prayer has never been allowed at the Western Wall – in fact, historically it was not allowed in either Holy Temple. In Torah law, women are not counted among a minyan (quorum) of men.

Not that this grants validity to the Jordanian claim of authority and hopes to win Waqf control of the site, which is more of a simple attempt at another political territory grab.

The Umayyad Palaces were two buildings which archaeologists say were built by the Umayyads who ruled for a period of 100 years in the late seventh century. They were destroyed in an earthquake and lay buried until they were unearthed by Israeli archaeologists in a 1970s excavation, creating a public history park to educate all.

The Western Wall is part of Judaism’s most sacred site on the planet, the Temple Mount, located alongside. The site is also the third holiest in Islam. The Wall is part of the outer retaining wall of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, its sole material remnant that has survived throughout the centuries. In Islam, it is believed that the prophet Mohammed rose up to Heaven on his mighty steed el-Buraq from a site near the Western Wall.

In Judaism, it is believed that somewhere on the grounds of the Temple Mount lies the site of the “Holy of Holies” of the two Holy Temples of Jerusalem – the inner sanctum where the High Priest (Kohen Gadol) communed with G-d Himself during sacrifices and services. No one other than the Kohen Gadol was ever allowed to enter this place, and to this day countless rabbis forbid Jews to tread upon the Temple Mount grounds for fear of erroneously entering this area.

The Israeli government does not allow Jews to pray within the Temple Mount in accordance with a status quo agreement with the Jordanian Waqf. Within the Temple Mount grounds are built the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, where Muslims are allowed to pray.