Itamar Ben Gvir visits Temple Mount to condemn cease-fire negotiations

Ben Gvir’s visit to the compound, which is frequently a flash point of violence, came one day after an Israeli delegation landed in Cairo to resume negotiations through U.S. and Egyptian mediators. The talks have collapsed repeatedly since November, but momentum has grown over the past week amid signals from both Israel and Hamas that a deal is possible.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under mounting pressure from the families of hostages taken during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack to reach a deal as soon as possible. But his far-right coalition partners, led by Ben Gvir, have threatened to bring down the government if he agrees to any cease-fire that would end the ongoing fight against Hamas in Gaza.

During a visit on Thursday to Rafah, in southern Gaza, Netanyahu said the military pressure exerted by Israeli troops there “right at Hamas’s throat” would help to “advance the hostage deal.” He denied that Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza was delaying the deal. Rather, he said, “it advances it.”

In a video filmed in front of the golden Dome of the Rock, Ben Gvir said he was there to pray for Netanyahu “not to back down and to go all the way to victory.”

Visits by non-Muslims to the al-Aqsa plaza — known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount — are heavily restricted, and non-Muslim prayers are prohibited.

Advocates for the roughly 120 Israeli hostages believed still held in Gaza said Ben Gvir was endangering their lives.

“Those comments and actions are deeply hurtful to the hostages’ families and dangerously irresponsible,” the Hostages Families Forum, an umbrella group, said in a statement to The Washington Post on Thursday. “The hostages’ lives hang in the balance. Time has already run out for many of them, and each passing day in captivity puts more at risk.”

White House national security spokesman John Kirby appeared to chide Ben Gvir’s visit to the mosque, telling reporters that the United States was concerned about counterproductive rhetoric used by some Israeli officials, who he said should not be stoking tensions.

“We have also expressed our concerns about activities and rhetoric by certain Israeli leaders, and those concerns remain valid,” Kirby said. “And what we would continue to urge our Israeli counterparts to do is nothing that inflames passions, or could lead to or encourage violent activity one way or the other.”

Ben Gvir’s visit was immediately condemned by neighboring Jordan, which has managed the compound since Israel took control of Jerusalem’s Old City in the 1967 war.

Ben Gvir has made frequent visits to the compound, relying on his parliamentary immunity to avoid arrest, and has called for it to be returned to Israeli control.

Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel condemned the visits as “provocations,” citing guidance from Jewish leaders that no person should enter the Temple Mount area for prayer.

The flap comes at a fraught moment for cease-fire negotiations, which have lurched along without a breakthrough. Last week, The Post reported that U.S. and Arab officials said that while the two sides were closer than they have been, Israel had injected new conditions to the proposal’s broad outline and both sides had balked on some of the details during talks in Cairo and in Doha, Qatar. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

Ben Gvir, an ultranationalist settler leader who was on the fringe of Israeli politics until Netanyahu invited him to join his narrow parliamentary majority in 2022, is among the most hawkish of the prime minister’s partners in the four-seat majority coalition. He and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have frequently threatened to bring down the government if Netanyahu strays from the hard line.

Both have rejected any proposal to include the Palestinian Authority in the future governance of Gaza and have called for Israel to permanently reoccupy the enclave after the war.

The prime minister’s office declined to comment.

The Pentagon called off its mission to supply Gaza with humanitarian aid through a floating pier. After costing hundreds of millions of dollars and lasting only a few months, the sea-based mission will now shift to the Israeli port in Ashdod, north of Gaza, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper said. The floating pier plan performed under expectations and was repeatedly sidelined by poor weather and rough seas.

The parents of American Israeli hostage Omer Neutra addressed the Republican National Convention on Wednesday evening, leading delegates in chants of “bring them home.” Neutra was serving as a tank commander when he was taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7. “This was not merely an attack on Israel. This was and remains an attack on Americans,” said Ronen Neutra, Omer’s father, who used his speech to praise former president Donald Trump for calling him after the attack.

Egyptian authorities said “tensions in the Red Sea” have caused a drop in revenue from the Suez Canal, as the number of ships transiting through the waterway declines. In a statement Thursday, the Suez Canal Authority said 20,148 ships navigated the canal in the year ending June 30, the most recent fiscal year, compared with 25,911 in the previous year. Revenue dropped from $9.4 billion to $7.2 billion in the same period.

The Israel Defense Forces said it killed about 20 militants from Hamas’s al-Shati battalion. In a statement Thursday, it said the Israeli air force killed “observation terrorists, engineers, and snipers,” including the sniper who killed Israeli soldier Tal Lahat in Gaza City on July 9.

At least 38,848 people have been killed and 89,459 injured in Gaza since the war started, the Gaza Health Ministry said. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 326 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.

Sands reported from London, and Pietsch reported from Washington. Michael Birnbaum in Washington contributed to this report.