Israeli Cabinet meets to review policy at shrine

Associated Press

JERUSALEM

Israel’s security Cabinet met Sunday to review a decision to install metal detectors at a contested Jerusalem holy site, after a week of escalating tensions with the Muslim world, mass prayer protests and Israeli-Palestinian violence.

The ministers met amid mounting controversy at home, with some critics saying the government had acted without sufficiently considering the repercussions of introducing new security measures at the Holy Land’s most sensitive shrine and the epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The metal detectors were installed a week ago, in response to an attack by Arab gunmen there who killed two Israeli policemen. Muslim religious leaders alleged Israel was trying to expand its control at the compound under the guise of security, a claim Israel denied.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, an outspoken supporter of the security measures, on Sunday for the first time raised the possibility that the metal detectors might be removed, provided an alternative is found.

In a possible spillover of the tensions, two Jordanians were killed and an Israeli was wounded by gunfire Sunday in a residential building in the heavily fortified Israeli embassy compound in Jordan’s capital, the kingdom’s Public Security Directorate said.

Before the shooting, Jordanians had entered the apartment building for carpentry work, the statement said.

It did not say what triggered the shooting.