Police officer stands guard near Temple Mount
Police officer stands guard near Temple MountYonatan Sindel/Flash 90

Rabbi and Professor Yoel Elitzur was arrested Thursday morning by Israeli police on the Temple Mount, fellow Temple Mount rights activists said. 

Elizur, a resident of the Samaria town Ofra, is a veteran activist for Temple Mount rights and has ascended to the holy site many of times in the past. 

According to activists, Islamist operatives associated with the Marabtat organization "pressed up against Prof. Elitzur, who ascends to the Mount on the sixteenth of every Jewish month, and called to him in Arabic 'Allahu Akbar.'"

In response, Prof. Elitzur called out in Hebrew "Hashem Hu Ha-Elokim [Hashem - He is God]." He was subsequently arrested by police. 

Yehuda Glick, a friend of Elitzur and a well-known Temple Mount rights activist, condemned the arrest on his Facebook page in the aftermath and criticized the hypocrisy of the police.

"Well done by the police who are only now being strict on sexual harassment against women," Glick said sarcastically, referring to recent allegations that have rocked the police force. 

Recently investigators from the Shin Bet and elite police unit Lahav 433 exposed two organizations"Al-Fajr" in Nazareth and "Muslim Women for Al-Aqsa" in Jerusalem - who finance Marabtat activists on the Temple Mount. 

The activists come daily to the Temple Mount and stand in the area designated for visitors and tourists.

When groups of Jewish visitors arrive to the Temple Mount, they use physical and verbal violence against the visitors "in a manner that violates freedom of religion as well as violates the personal safety of visitors to the site," police said.