Jerusalem’s most important Muslim religious site facing ‘imminent’ threat of Israeli takeover, says Jordan

On 23 July, more than 2,000 Israelis from the religious right stormed the area. Photograph: Ilia Yefimovich/AFP/Getty Images

Jordan is convening an emergency meeting of foreign ministers from the Arab and Islamic world over what it says is an “imminent” threat of an Israeli takeover of the most important Muslim site in Jerusalem, with the potential to “trigger a religious conflict”.

The meeting on Wednesday – and the Jordanian warning – follow an escalating pattern of government-backed incursions by Jewish religious extremists on the compound around al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock, in violation of a status quo treaty overseen by Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy, by which only Muslims can pray at the site.