Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday defended the use of force against what he called Muslim extremists, following a violent night at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, also known as the Temple Mount. He also reiterated a commitment to maintain the status quo during the sensitive religious holiday season.
Netanyahu reiterated that Israel “…is committed to maintaining freedom of worship, free access for all religions to the Temple Mount according to the status quo, and will not allow violent extremists to change that.”
In a related development, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Theophilos III, this week received a message from Greece’s deputy foreign minister, Andreas Katsaniotis. The latter conveyed the Athens government’s heightened concern over recent instances of violence directed at Christian places of worship and monuments, especially the attack against the Holy Shrine of the Mother of God in Gethsemane.
The Greek minister will travel to the Holy City of Jerusalem on Easter Saturday to attend the reverential and emotional ceremony of the Holy Fire, annually performed at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.