Over 40,000 Jews have visited the Temple Mount since last Jerusalem Day, which coincided with May 2021's Operation Guardian of the Walls, setting a new record for such visits, data by the Temple Mount Movement NGO shows.
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The figure refers to the number of religious visitors to the mountain, who usually ascend the holy site in small groups. Secular Jews and tourists also visited the Temple Mount over the past year, in far lower numbers.
The Temple Mount Movement estimates that by the end of 2022, about 43,000 will have vitiated the site – a projected increase of some 5,000 from the previous record, set in 2019, which saw nearly 38,000 Jews visit the mountain.
In 2020 and 2021, when the Temple Mount was temporarily closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, fewer Jews visited the site.
This figure is very pleasing to the NGO, as it reflects a 1,000% increase in the number of Jews visiting the Temple Mount since the beginning of the previous decade.
However, as the number of Muslim visitors to the site during this period of time exceeded 10 million – as did the number of visitors to the Western Wall, the number of Jews visiting the Temple Mount is trivial; even more so when compared to the number of foreign tourists who visited the Temple Mount each year over the last decade, which averaged about 327,000.
Behind the increase in the number of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount are several key changes, chiefly the police allowing more such visits and a change in rabbinic rulings that now allow such visits, having previously categorically banned Jews from setting foot on the holy site.
The Israel Police are on high alert ahead of this year's Jerusalem Day, the country's 55, as the traditional flag march has been cleared to go through the Damascus Gate – a high-profile flashpoint in the capital.
The march, set for next Sunday, is expected to go through the Old City's Muslim Quarter as well. Those opposing the march see it as an unnecessary nationalist provocation in what it already a fraught time in the capital, while its supporters argue that it is an expression of Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem.
The Border Police is expected to send three reserve companies to assist the thousands of police officers that will be deployed along the march's path.
Police are gearing for potential clashes between marchers and the Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem, especially given that the Gaza Strip-based terrorist groups have called on them to riot.
Given last year's events, police officials are concerned that unrest in the capital could evolve into multi-scene escalation throughout Judea and Samaria and in the Gaza Strip, as well as in Israel's mixed cities.
Also on Tuesday, the police limited the number of people allowed to participate in the match to 16,000, citing public safety concerns. Organizers and the police have hammered out a compromise by which 8,000 participants would arrive at the Western Wall through the Damascus Gate and the reminder through the Jaffa Gate.
With tens of thousands of others expected to arrive as well, the police said they would allow them to stage festivities near the Jaffa Gate and the city walls.
The organizers of the flag dance stated that "the flag march seels to express the unification of Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty forever. Those who oppose it have only one goal – to divide Jerusalem."
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