Police start to reopen Temple Mount to Jewish and Christian visitors
By Etgar Lefkovits
Nearly three years after Jerusalem's Temple Mount was declared off limits to non-Muslims, Jerusalem police have begun permitting some small groups of Jewish and Christian tourists as well as Israelis to reenter the site, police said Monday.
Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said that about twenty such groups have been allowed to enter the bitterly contested site over the last few weeks under police escort, as part of what he called "the beginning of a process" to gradually reopen the area.
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Wakf [Islamic Trust] director Adnan Husseini did not return repeated calls for comments for comment Monday night, and, in an unusual move, shut off his cellular phone.
As such, it was not immediately clear whether the Wakf remained strictly opposed to the entry of non-Muslims to the site, or whether they had given their tacit approval to the limited reentry of visitors, but were upset over the publication of such news.
