Islamists in Gaza, who through the weekend fired hundreds of rockets at Jewish communities in the south of Israel, Sunday turned their sites on Jerusalem as two thousand Jewish worshippers streamed onto the Temple Mount on what is the 9^th day of the Hebrew calendar month of Av.

Tisha b’Av marks the destruction of the Temples of יהוה of Israel that once stood upon His “holy hill of Zion” (Psalm 2). While those who ascended the Mount on Sunday were representative of a rather small, devout segment of Israeli society, multitudes of Jews hold to this Biblical perspective: that the Temple Mount is their holiest site.

Muslims forbid Jews – and Christians – from praying up there; a prohibition that Israeli governments have appallingly enforced. On Sunday, Israeli police reportedly detained a number of Jews for this “crime”.

It was as the visitors were entering the site that the air raid sirens sounded in the capital.  News came quickly that two rockets were intercepted coming in over the Judean hills. They were believed fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad...