View of Temple Mount
View of Temple MountMiriam Alster/ Flash 90

Israel on Friday rejected the Palestinian Authority’s calls for a protection force to be deployed in eastern Jerusalem to quell violence around the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

"Let me be crystal clear -- Israel will not agree to any international presence on the Temple Mount. Such a presence would be a change in the status quo," Israeli Deputy Ambassador David Roet told the UN Security Council, according to the AFP news agency.

His remarks were made as the 15-member council met in an emergency session to discuss weeks of escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. and the territories.

The PA’s envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, urged the council to "urgently intervene to

end this aggression against our defenseless Palestinian people" and called for "international protection".

He called on Israeli security forces to withdraw from "contact points" with the Palestinians, in particular in eastern Jerusalem.

Radical Islamists have been continuously holding violent riots on the Temple Mount since the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

PA officials, including chairman Mahmoud Abbas, have blamed Israel for the riots and have accused it of trying to change the “status quo” on the Temple Mount, whereby Muslims are allowed to pray at the site while Jews are not.

Abbas has also repeatedly incited to violence on the compound.

No draft resolution was presented to council members on Friday but French Ambassador Francois Delattre said he will circulate a draft statement appealing for calm.

In a bid to dispel fears, the council statement would also call for maintaining the status quo at the Al-Aqsa compound.

The council is to hold a ministerial-level debate on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis on Thursday to try to press for a de-escalation.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)