Ramadan and Al-Aqsa: Toward a New “Status Quo” Taking Shape Through Gradual Accumulation

Ramadan is approaching amid escalating challenges imposed by the Israeli police inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Police and administrative measures are intensifying in ways that are no longer read as temporary security steps, but rather as accumulated tools producing a new status quo. In this context, the slogan “custodianship does not mean sovereignty” is not advanced merely as a legal argument; it is used as a political and security cover to undermine the role of the Jordanian Waqf by redefining it as an external, non-binding party, and by confining the Hashemite custodianship to a function of “care” while entrenching the idea that final authority over the site’s management is an Israeli sovereign decision. This was made explicit in a statement by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, which stressed that “Israeli sovereignty is preserved,” and that decisions concerning the “Temple Mount” are taken on sovereign grounds and without pressure from “foreign factors.” As Ramadan draws near, these signals do not appear detached from early security and administrative preparations in Jerusalem, suggesting that the month may once again become a testing ground between the historically established “status quo” and a new status quo that is being gradually entrenched through facts on the ground.

Here, “the status quo” is not a vague slogan, but a practical arrangement that developed historically: the Islamic Waqf administers the religious affairs within the Haram, and entry/visitation is regulated in a way that prevents visits from turning into an organized Jewish ritual practice inside the site, while the police role remains confined to an external security framework—or a minimal presence that does not translate into authority to regulate worship.

A timeline prepared by the author about the development of events inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque

In this context, a set of pivotal questions emerges: What are the outer limits of the measures that can be imposed in Al-Aqsa Mosque? What kinds of changes are likely this year, especially given the succession of developments and the accelerating pace of decisions on the ground? And are we moving toward a more regularized temporal and spatial partitioning?

These shifts begin through a sequence of measures designed to impose new facts inside Al-Aqsa, foremost among them pushing—de facto—toward a temporal and spatial division. This is reflected in lengthening the duration of incursions and expanding their time window: at times, a justification is advanced that Ramadan incursions are confined to “a single period,” but the practical outcome is to turn this arrangement into an imposed rule that becomes difficult to roll back later. In addition, forces involved in the incursion deliberately enter minutes before the stated closing time and then remain in the courtyards beyond the announced end of the incursion—as seen in the most recent incursion in which Ben-Gvir participated[1]. This reflects an escalating tendency to recalibrate “timing” inside Al-Aqsa as a tool of control, used to redefine the “right to the place” through control over time.

The tools for imposing faits accomplis do not stop at timing; they extend to the management of space and ritual as sovereign elements that can be regulated. Heavy police presence inside the compound, nighttime clearing procedures, banning or restricting i‘tikaf (overnight devotional retreat), and imposing age restrictions or entry conditions do not function as separate measures. Rather, they operate as a single package that redefines who holds the decision over “opening and closing,” and who sets the boundaries and conditions of worship. In this sense, the police shift from a security actor to an effective religious regulator, while the Waqf’s role is pushed toward a symbolic and service-oriented position—emptying the notion of “custodianship” of its practical content and replacing it with sovereign management on the ground.

Alongside this, Ramadan sees an intensification of practices and incursions that signal a rising trajectory of imposed realities inside Al-Aqsa, including attempts linked to bringing in “sacrifices” or performing related rites in the compound’s vicinity. This occurs in parallel with engineering access through age restrictions and “digital” permits that limit worshippers’ ability to enter, as well as tightening the space for nighttime i‘tikaf through expulsions and bans. These measures are accompanied by strengthening surveillance systems through the installation of devices and cameras—an issue viewed as a direct infringement on the “status quo” because it redefines the site’s management in the form of a permanent security regime.

The danger of the coming Ramadan lies not only in the repetition of past measures, but in the possibility that some will shift from security “exceptions” into a lasting system. This is evident in scenarios such as preventing the observance of the last ten nights (al-‘ashr al-awakhir), turning them into nights administered under security control; and in scenarios that normalize incursions as an administrative routine that becomes hard to reverse after the month ends. Another possibility is the expansion of digital permit management as an opaque sorting mechanism, alongside the practical demarcation of the compound into differentiated “use” zones—recasting the Waqf from an executive authority into a ceremonial one.

In parallel with field measures, the governing coalition in the Israeli Knesset has advanced a bill known in media discourse as the “Tefillin Law” (“The Bill to Affirm Jewish Identity in the Public Sphere”). Its core purpose is to criminalize obstructing Jewish religious practices—such as laying tefillin or praying—in public spaces and public institutions, reflecting an attempt to entrench “religiosity in the public sphere” as a binding legal framework.

Although the “Affirming Jewish Identity in the Public Sphere” bill does not explicitly target Al-Aqsa by name, it can widen the legal and political umbrella for the notion of a “right to Jewish prayer” in public space—an effect that resonates most sharply at Al-Aqsa as the most sensitive and symbolically charged site. When ritual practice is framed as a protected right, and the obstruction of that right is met with criminalization, it becomes easier—discursively and operationally—to justify broader security intervention inside the compound under the pretext of “protecting worship.” Practically, this may push toward normalizing semi-public scenes of prayer and expanding their margins—not as a breach of the status quo, but as a “logical extension” of rights legitimized outside Al-Aqsa’s walls.

For the Jordanian Waqf, the bill compounds the existing pressure on its role. It creates a framework through which the authority to regulate worship—and to draw the lines of what is permitted and prohibited inside the site—can be redefined. In Ramadan, when sensitivity reaches its peak, this framework may become a lever for consolidating an operational reality in which rituals and space (opening and closing, i‘tikaf, the distribution of presence, movement routes) are managed through a new security-legal logic. This would push the Waqf further into a symbolic and service role, weaken its practical mandate, and transform the “status quo” from a historical arrangement into a space that is being actively rewritten.

The question remains: will Jordan approach the current trajectory as a sovereign and security file that directly affects regional stability—thereby raising the cost of altering it by holding Israel responsible for any potential escalation during Ramadan? Or will it adopt a more explicit approach that ties respect for the custodianship arrangements and the status quo to the quality of bilateral relations and to the level of commitment to shared agreements and understandings—so that undermining the Waqf’s role is no longer treated as a containable detail, but becomes a direct political test, especially as decisions continue to accumulate in ways that target the Hashemite custodianship and Jordan’s role in Jerusalem?

In sum, the coming Ramadan does not appear to be merely a transient season of tension, but another station in an accumulative trajectory through which the “status quo” is being redefined via small, connected tools: controlling timing, managing space, regulating rituals, and engineering access. The risk is not any single measure on its own, but its transformation into a normalized rule—year after year—and the gradual transfer of site management from the Waqf to a security-legal logic that expands sovereignty in practice within the compound, especially in light of the Knesset bill. Therefore, the test of the next Ramadan will not be limited to the number of incursions or their hours, but to the deeper question: What is it about Ramadan that makes it the most conducive month for “exceptional” measures to harden into fixed rules at Al-Aqsa?

[1] a source on the ground