Israel police stop man and 'sacrificial' goat in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM:  Israeli police said they detained a Jewish man carrying a young goat in Jerusalem's Old City on Monday on suspicion he planned to use it in a religious sacrifice.

The incident occurred hours before the week-long Passover holiday, which begins at sunset on Monday.

"Police detained for questioning a man carrying a kid in the Old City of Jerusalem on suspicion he intended to sacrifice it as a passover offering," a police statement said.

"The kid was passed to agriculture ministry inspectors."

In previous years, right-wing Jews have tried to smuggle goats to the flashpoint holy site known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif to reenact the Passover sacrifice as described in the Bible.

The compound in the Old City houses both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque, and is venerated by Jews as the site where the second Jewish temple once stood before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.

Clashes regularly break out between Palestinians and Israeli security forces at the compound.

It is located in east Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in 1967 and later annexed, and is central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinians fear Israel will seek to assert further control over it.

A police spokesman told AFP that the suspect's destination was not clear.

On Thursday, Jewish activists advocating the repeal of a ban on Jewish worship at the ancient temple site recreated the biblical sacrifice in a public square in the nearby Jewish quarter of the Old City, Haaretz daily reported.

Jews are allowed to visit the site but not pray there to avoid provoking tensions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly he has no intention of changing that status quo, though hardline members of his coalition push for Jewish prayer rights there.