Elon was due to lead a march from west occupied Jerusalem to the Western Wall inside east occupied Jerusalem's Old City

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, August 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) -  Israeli police prevented Thursday, August 7, a deputy from the right-wing Likud party from entering Al-Haram Al-Sharif, one of Islam’s holiest sites.

Yehiel Hazan had tried to invoke his parliamentary immunity by entering the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), which the Jews claimed is the presumed site of the first and second Jewish temples.

Jews throughout the world were commemorating Thursday the festival of Tisha B'Av which recalls the alleged destruction of the Temple of Solomon (the first temple) and the Temple of Herod (the second temple) by the Babylonians and the Romans in 537 BC and 70 AD respectively.

"I wanted to show that Jews have the right to go freely" where they wanted in their 'own country'", Hazan told public radio.

Al Haram Al-Sharif is located in east Jerusalem, which Israel occupies since 1967.

Hazan arrived at the Western Wall plaza Thursday morning and repeated his determination to enter the area, but police told him he was not allowed to go up due to "security considerations".

He waved his Knesset member identity card, but police officers told him it didn't give him the license to visit the site, Haaretz reported

It said that police warned a visit to the holiest site, one of the holiest in Islam, could lead to severe rioting and bloodshed.

The Waqf, or Muslim religious trust, called Thursday on all Palestinians and Muslims to "protect the site from attempts of Jewish extremists to force their way into the
compound".

Two other Likud deputies had earlier dropped plans to also enter the site from the plaza of the Western Wall, the chief remains of the alleged second temple.

Likud MP Inbal Gavrieli said that she would not visit the site that day, despite her declaration Wednesday that "I will go up to the Temple Mount, period."

Gavrieli said she was persuaded by senior security officials who gave her "specific information" Wednesday night indicating that an attempt to visit the area could create serious disturbances.

MPs from the left as well as Shinui ministers attacked their colleagues’ decision to visit Haram Al-Sharif at this time, said Haaretz.

"It would be a provocation that should not be allowed," Interior Minister Avraham Poraz (Shinui) said, adding that then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the site was a mistake.

"Apparently there are some MKs who are sick and tired of the quiet and they want to
reignite the intifada," National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky said.

Israeli police late last month suspended visits to the site by non-Muslims which had resumed several weeks earlier for the first time since the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada in September 2000.

The Intifada broke out on September 28, 2000, in the wake of a provocative visit to the mosque by then opposition leader Ariel Sharon. Israeli police banned issuing permits to Jews to have access to the mosque.

‘Rejected’

In the meanwhile, the Supreme Court also Wednesday rejected a petition which is submitted every year by the extremist Temple Mount Faithful group demanding permission to symbolically place a foundation stone for a new temple.

Long pressing successive Israeli governments into allowing a replica of the alleged temple, the messianic group won approval from Israel's Supreme Court two years ago to lay the 4.5-ton marble stone at a gate to the Old City near the Al-Aqsa mosque site - where Israelis claim the so-called Temple Mount stood, but were denied permission to hold the ceremony on the mosque itself.

Judges backed police arguments that the visit could lead to violence, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The Temple Mount Faithful, which consists of no more than a few dozen members, has been seeking for the past 20 years to build a third temple on the site of the Haram, the third holiest shrine in Islam after Mecca and Medina.

Jews allege most of what remains of the second temple is the Western Wall, where thousands of Jews would have been expected to assemble on Wednesday evening to commemorate the temple's destruction.

Tourism Minister Benny Elon, a member of the far-right National Union party, was due to lead a march from west occupied Jerusalem to the Western Wall inside east occupied Jerusalem's Old City.

In May, Israeli Interior Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi pledged to soon allow Jews to pray inside Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a move that provoked the Palestinians amid warnings that it could set the region ablaze.

The Israeli media reported earlier the provocative move by the Israeli authorities to allow some 20 groups of Israelis and foreign tourists into Al Aqsa mosque.

The initiative for visits came from occupied Jerusalem police chief Micky Levy, who felt the end of the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq had produced a "change of atmosphere" in mostly Arab east Jerusalem, the Israeli television said.