Waqf rejects new Jerusalem Jewish pray site

The Islamic authority that oversees a sensitive Jerusalem holy site says it opposes a new prayer area for non-Orthodox Jews at the adjacent Western Wall.

The Waqf’s rejection may present an obstacle for Israel which has tried to defuse tensions with more liberal streams of Judaism who have demanded the right to pray at the wall according to their customs. After three years of negotiations, Israel announced the creation of the new prayer area last week.

Any changes to the hilltop compound, holy to Jews and Muslims, stoke tensions. The Western Wall is the holiest place where Jews can pray.

The director of the mosque compound, Omar Kiswani, said on Sunday: “We will never accept it.”

Mr Kiswani said a complaint was filed with the Israeli police and further steps were being considered.

Meanwhile, suspected arsonists in the West Bank burned a tent that served as a synagogue dedicated to three Israeli teenagers killed by Palestinians, provoking an angry reaction from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The tent near the Karmei Tzur settlement in the south of the occupied Palestinian territory burned on Saturday, causing no injuries but leaving Jewish religious books damaged and destroyed, the police said.

The Israeli media reported that the police suspected residents of the nearby Palestinian town of Halhul.

Mr Netanyahu alleged on his Facebook page that the synagogue “was set on fire by Palestinians”.

“We will prosecute the perpetrators of this crime. I expect the international community to condemn the desecration of a synagogue, an act that is the result of incessant Palestinian incitement.”

The synagogue was dedicated to Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach, who were abducted from a hitchhiking stop near the West Bank city of Hebron in 2014 and later killed. Their bodies were discovered in the area.

A few weeks after their kidnapping, 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir was abducted and burned alive in a revenge plot by three Israelis. Two of them — who were 16 at the time of the killing — were sentenced on Thursday, with one receiving a life term and the other 21 years.