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HEBRON: Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Tuesday he had stripped Palestinians of authority over the site of the Cave of Patriarchs, known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, in the occupied West Bank.
The move to transfer management of the site to an Israeli committee controlled by the far-right minister, drew swift condemnation from the Palestinian Authority.
In a statement posted on his Telegram channel, Smotrich said the site will no longer be administered by the municipality authority in the West Bank city of Hebron.
“The meaning of this decision is that many authorities previously granted in Hebron and at the holy sites — including the very foundation of our existence, the Cave of the Patriarchs — are no longer under the control of the Hebron Municipality,” Smotrich said.
