ISRAEL’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, called it “a dangerous, unnecessary and irresponsible act”. The leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, said that it showed that the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has “lost control of his government”. They were reacting to a statement on Monday by Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-Right member of the ruling coalition, that he would build a Jewish synagogue on the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem. Mr Ben-Gvir attracted criticism for entering the mosque courtyard in July, with his heavily armed security detail and an Orthodox rabbi in tow, to pray for the return of the Israeli hostages. During the visit, he also had time to announce to camera, with al-Aqsa Mosque behind him, that he was “working hard for the Prime Minister to have courage not to concede and to go on until victory is achieved, to add military pressure, to stop the fuel [reaching Gaza], and to win”.

Such provocative statements, made just as ceasefire talks have resumed in Doha, are further evidence of the forces stacked against a resolution of the Israel/Gaza conflict. The freeing this week of another hostage taken by Hamas on 7 October last year, Kaid Farhan Elkadi, a security guard at Kibbutz Magen, paradoxically helps to support the illusion that the remaining hostages can be retrieved by military action and not negotiation. In fact, only eight of the 117 hostages released have been freed by the Israeli military; 105 were released during the rounds of negotiation last year. Of the original 251 hostages, 104 are still unaccounted for. Monday also saw yet another call for a ceasefire by the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem, together with the release of all captives and the relief of all who are hungry, sick, or have been rendered homeless. The exasperated church leaders remarked that the ceasefire negotiations had “dragged on interminably, with the leaders of the warring parties seemingly more concerned with political considerations than bringing an end to the pursuit of death and destruction”.

There is no new plea that the church leaders can make; so they simply repeat an old one. For that matter, there is nothing new that a leader-writer can say, either. But silence cannot be an option, as the death toll passes 40,000, according to the Gaza health authority; as the UN reports that humanitarian work is being made impossible by the plethora of evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military; as the conflict threatens to engulf the West Bank; and as Israel and Hamas impose impossible conditions before a ceasefire can be agreed. So let us say the same things as before: that conflict does not bring justice to a region, only greater injustice; and a solution that does not address root causes will not endure. And to have a site in Jerusalem that is deemed holy by two world faiths and esteemed by a third ought to be a source of unity and a symbol of peace, not a bone of contention and a place of provocation.