The US embassy in Jerusalem has cautioned American citizens over travel in the city and limited the times when embassy workers and their families can enter the Old City due to recent terror attacks and clashes in the area.
In a statement Wednesday, the embassy urged US citizens to “remain vigilant and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness as security incidents often take place without warning.”
It also said “US government employees and their family members cannot enter the Old City after dark (dusk to dawn) and on Fridays,” adding that “Damascus, Herod’s, and Lions’ Gates remain off-limits as well.”
It said the ban was a result of “recent terrorist attacks, the fact that the Old City of Jerusalem and nearby neighborhoods have been frequent sites of clashes, and potential security issues associated with the April 2022 holidays.”
The warning comes after several deadly terror attacks in Israel in recent weeks and spiraling tensions in Jerusalem, centered on the Temple Mount and the Al-Aqsa Mosque on it.
Israel Police have entered the compound several times over the past week in order to quash Palestinian riots. The most intensive violence took place last Friday, after police said Palestinians hurled stones they had stockpiled inside Al-Aqsa Mosque toward the Western Wall, below. Police entered in force and clashed with dozens of Palestinians shortly after dawn prayers. Over 150 Palestinians were wounded and some 400 were arrested in the rioting that ensued. Clashes have continued on a near-daily basis since.
The week of Passover brought a record number of over 4,600 Jewish visitors to the contested mount, the holiest place in Judaism as the site of the biblical temples, and site of the third holiest shrine in Islam. Israel extended sovereignty to the Temple Mount and East Jerusalem after capturing the area from its Jordanian occupiers in the 1967 war. The Palestinians seek the area as the capital of an independent state.
Tensions have been exacerbated this year as Passover coincided with Ramadan and Easter — a confluence identified by the Biden administration months in advance as a possible recipe for renewed tensions in Jerusalem.