Jordan accuses Israel of barring top Muslim officials from Al-Aqsa

AMMAN: Jordan on Sunday accused Israeli authorities of barring top Palestinian Muslim officials from Al-Aqsa mosque in annexed east Jerusalem.

Sheikh Abdel Azim Salhab, head of the Waqf religious authority that runs the site in the disputed city, has been barred for 40 days and his deputy for four months.Two other religious officials have been detained, Firas al-Dibs, spokesman for the Waqf which answers to Jordan as custodian of Al-Aqsa, the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina, told AFP.

Israeli police, contacted by AFP, had no immediate comment on the reports.Jordan’s minister for religious affairs, Abdel Nasser Abu-Bassal, quoted by state news agency Petra, accused Israel of “a new escalation aimed at impeding Waqf’s work in Jerusalem and intimidating its members”.

Scuffles have broken out between worshippers and Israeli police around Al-Aqsa since late February over access to a side building in the compound closed by Israel since 2003.The site is located in the Old City of east Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.

Syria takes part in first Arab meeting since 2011: Syria attended a meeting of Arab states on Sunday for the first time since its conflict broke out in 2011, marking another step towards the country’s political reintegration into the region.

Syria’s parliament speaker, Hammouda Sabbagh, travelled to Amman for an Arab inter-parliamentary meeting. His Jordanian counterpart, Atef al-Tarawneh, called in a speech for regional countries “to work towards a political settlement to the Syrian crisis... and for Syria to regain its place” in the Arab world.

A growing number of Arab states have voiced support for Syria’s return to the Arab League, which suspended the country’s membership in November 2011 as the death toll mounted in its war.

Divisions within the pan-Arab organisation, however, have stalled the readmission of Syria, which with the support of Russia and Iran has largely regained control of its territory from rebel groups and jihadists.

But the UAE reopened its Damascus embassy in December, the same month as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir made the first visit of any Arab leader to the Syrian capital since 2011.