Israeli authorities have recently said they are taking control of the management of the Tomb of the Patriarchs holy site in Hebron, in order to carry out construction work at the flashpoint West Bank shrine.
According to the Civil Administration, a branch of the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator for Government Affairs in the Territories (COGAT) liaison to the Palestinians, the government has authorized a process whereby Israeli authorities will be able to build a canopy over a courtyard in the Tomb of the Patriarchs complex to provide shade to worshipers.
The Civil Administration has said that the bureaucratic process for enabling this work to go ahead is in its “advanced stages,” and will be for the benefit of “all population groups who pray at the site.”
The Tomb of the Patriarchs is revered in Judaism as the burial site of the Biblical patriarchs and matriarchs Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. It is also a holy site for Muslims, and a large section of the compound serves as the Ibrahimi Mosque. The site features different times and spaces for Jewish and Muslim prayer, and any change to the arrangements typically attracts condemnation.
Israeli authorities have accused the Islamic Waqf — a religious trust that, together with the municipal authority of the Palestinian city of Hebron, has administered the Tomb of the Patriarchs thus far — of failing to cooperate regarding necessary renovations to the site.
In light of this position, a process for transferring the management authority from the Hebron Municipal Authority to the Civil Administration has been initiated, Israeli officials said.
Officials connected to the religious council of the Hebron-adjacent Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba have claimed that the council will be in charge of carrying out the construction work at the contested site.
Rabbi Benayahu Shmueli leads a Selichot prayer on the eve of Rosh Chodesh Elul at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron on August 8, 2018. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)
But the Civil Administration denied this was the case, saying authority for site management would remain in its hands.
And it said that management authority would be restored to the Hebron Municipal Council once the construction work is finished.
Amitai Cohen, an official with the Tomb of the Patriarchs Administration, which runs the Jewish part of the shared holy site, nevertheless stated that the religious council was now in charge of daily operations at the site.
He said he was unaware of any arrangement whereby the management authority would be restored to the Palestinian Hebron Municipal Council.
In a similar process in 2020, the Defense Ministry approved plans to install a controversial elevator for disabled access at the site, which was carried out by the Civil Administration.
The elevator was inaugurated in June 2023.
Defense Minister Israel Katz’s office did not respond to a request for comment from The Times of Israel regarding the contradictory accounts over the management of the holy site.
Palestinian Muslims perform the morning Eid al-Fitr prayer, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, in the Ibrahimi Mosque or the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron, on May 02, 2022. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)
“The idea is to make order at the Tomb of the Patriarchs for everyone who prays there,” said Cohen.
“We need to develop it and take it forward as a holy site, it’s something healthy that there will be an organization with authority and responsibility to deal with the issues there.”
The Palestinian Authority and the United Arab Emirates both condemned the transfer of authority, however.
Ramallah said that it would constitute “an unprecedented step in the occupation’s measures to impose its sovereignty over the mosque, Judaize it, and completely alter its identity and features.”
And the UAE’s foreign ministry said it had “expressed its strong condemnation” over the plans, and called it “a grave violation of the historical and legal status quo at the Ibrahimi Mosque.”
The ministry added that it was calling for “an immediate halt to all unilateral and provocative actions that risk destabilizing the occupied Palestinian territories and undermining international efforts toward de-escalation.”
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