Five residents of eastern Jerusalem were charged with planning a shooting attack on the Temple Mount.
The Palestinian men, ages 20 to 25, were charged April 17 with attempted kidnapping, attempted murder, aiding the enemy at a time of war, contact with a foreign agent and weapons charges, according to Ynet.
The indictment filed in Jerusalem District Court said the men planned to kill Jewish worshippers at the Temple Mount and to throw a grenade into the Israel Police station in eastern Jerusalem, as well as kidnap a Jewish man and kill him with his own weapon. The men, who met several times in February and March, had turned to terror groups in the West Bank and Gaza for weapons and explosives training, according to the indictment.
Also April 17, Likud lawmaker Miri Regev said she would visit the Temple Mount to examine the possibility of Jews being allowed to pray there.
Jews generally are not permitted to pray or bring any ritual objects to the Temple Mount, which is considered Judaism’s holiest site, in order to avoid confrontation with Muslim worshippers at the Al-Aksa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site. The site is overseen by the Muslim Wakf.
Likud lawmaker Moshe Feiglin has been denied access to the site, and he has been arrested for praying there. Feiglin visits the Temple Mount once a month on the 19th of the Hebrew month, and often brings visitors with him. — jta