Nine Temple Mount detainees on Tisha B'Av

For a selection of cases in which Honenu Attorneys represented Jews detained on or near the Temple Mount please see here.

Sunday, August 7, 2022, 11:18 By 9:30 on the fast of Tisha B'Av (this year, August 7), Honenu's headquarters had received reports of seven Jewish detainees on the Temple Mount, some of whom had prostrated themselves. The detainees were removed from the Temple Mount and told that they will be summoned for interrogation and a hearing before they are administratively distanced from the site. Honenu Attorney Nati Rom assisted the detainees at the scene and at the police station.

Approximately two hours later, two more Jews were detained after they left the Temple Mount (see video clips below). Eyewitnesses stated that one of them was brutally detained by Yasam policemen after he asked one of them for his personal details and recorded him on a cell phone. The policeman refused to give his details. The detainee was assaulted by the policemen and taken to the nearby police station. An additional detainee was detained after he filmed the detention of the first detainee. The policemen confiscated the detainees' cell phones. Honenu Attorney Nati Rom assisted the detainees.

Detention off of the Temple Mount; Video credit: Honenu

Detention off of the Temple Mount; Video credit: Honenu

At the end of the video, a policeman is seen confiscating a cell phone.

In recent years there have been several instances of Jews detained while attempting to pray either on or near the Temple Mount on Tisha B’Av. In 2018, police distanced from the gates of the Temple Mount dozens of worshipers who had arrived from Yeshivat Torat HaChayim, because their prayer might cause disturbances and rioting among Muslim visitors to the site. See here for a 2017 case of a detainee tasered in the Old City of Jerusalem. See here for the report of the closings of two cases, one from 2015 and the other from 2016, each of which involved police brutality. See here for a 2013 case in which two Jewish girls were detained while praying near the gates to the Temple Mount, even though police at the site granted them permission to do so.