Good morning. In late July, Itamar Ben-Gvir, West Bank settler and far-right extremist minister of security in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, joined a group of more than 2,000 Jewish extremists to storm al-Aqsa mosque compound, Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site. The far-right group has been doing this for years. Ben-Gvir has made series of visits to the site over the last three years, eroding norms and inflaming tensions. Jordanian officials have recently warned that it could be at risk of an “imminent” Israeli takeover.
With national elections scheduled in October, and many eyes still firmly on Gaza (this weekend, Netanyahu rejected a US-backed 15 point plan for peace), the Israeli government appears to be racing to expand Israeli settlements and accelerate ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem before its mandate expires.
