US and Israel reportedly seek to end Jordan's custodianship of Al-Aqsa Mosque

The US and Israel are "actively working" to strip Jordan of its historic custodianship of Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, multiple sources told Middle East Eye, in a plan championed by Jared Kushner and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.

Under the proposal, the Jordanian-backed Islamic Waqf would be dissolved and replaced by a new body created by the Israeli government that would declare the Al-Aqsa Mosque a "multi-faith centre," according to US, Jordanian and Palestinian officials, as well as western and Gulf Arab sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. The "new arrangement" would grant Jews "equal access" to the site and formally allow large-group Jewish prayer, the sources said.

Israel would have a major say over the appointment of imams, preachers and senior mosque officials, and would sign off on the content of Friday sermons, the sources added. Two US officials told MEE that Washington had drafted a paper on the mosque's future.

A western official and a source briefed by the Jordanian government said Arab countries could be granted "rotational" oversight of the complex. Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates have been briefed on the US proposal, according to sources. Two Gulf Arab sources and another source said Saudi Arabia was against the proposal.

Mustafa Abu Sway, deputy head of the Waqf council, said: "The Hashemite Custodianship is a cornerstone for stability in the region, undermining it is tantamount to undermining the very principles for peace."

A Jordanian government official stressed that Amman's position on Jerusalem and its holy sites "remains firm" and cited Article 9 of the 1994 Jordan-Israel peace treaty, which recognizes Jordan's "special role" in Jerusalem's Islamic holy sites. The Jerusalem Governorate said it had not been informed of the proposal and "reject[s] it entirely."

Following the article's publication, a US official denied the White House was actively working to strip Jordan of its custodianship, calling the report "totally false."

The Al-Aqsa Mosque has been governed under a decades-long status quo preserving its status as an exclusively Islamic site. Under arrangements reached after the 1967 war, Jordan and Israel agreed that the Islamic Waqf would administer internal affairs at the compound while Israel controlled external security. Non-Muslims are permitted to visit during designated hours but are not allowed to pray there. Jordanian and Palestinian officials said the proposed arrangement appeared loosely modeled on Israel's policies at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, where a 1994 massacre by an Israeli settler led to a formal division of the site between Muslims and Jews.