UN Security Council stresses Al-Aqsa status quo, takes no action

Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of Palestine to the United Nations, speaks at a meeting of the UN Security Council at UN headquarters in New York City, the United States, on January 5, 2023 [Mike Segar/Reuters]

United Nation’s Security Council members voiced concern and stressed the need to maintain the status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, but did not commit to any action days after Israel’s new far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made a controversial visit to the site, which Palestinian leaders called “an unprecedented provocation”.

The decades-old status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound allows only Muslim worship at the site, which is Islam’s third-holiest after Mecca and Medina.