RAMALLAH, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia's national football team visited Jerusalem and held a noon prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque on Monday, a day after their arrival in the West Bank for the first time, official news Agency WAFA reported.
The Saudi football team visited the West Bank to play against its Palestinian counterpart as part of the 2020 World Cup Asian qualifiers.
Azzam Khatib, director of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, and Omar Kiswani, director of Al-Aqsa Mosque, briefed the Saudi delegation on the situation at the Islamic site, focusing on harassments by Israeli police and repeated "settler incursions" into the mosque compound.
Israeli police reportedly facilitated the visit through special security arrangements at the gates into Al-Aqsa Mosque and placed metal barriers around the holy compound.
However, the police detained members of the Palestinian security including Said Atari, head of the Palestinian Preventive Security in Jerusalem, who were accompanying the Saudi delegation during their visit.
Many Palestinians described the Saudi team's visit and the upcoming match as "historic."
Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to the Jewish people as the Temple Mount, is sacred to both Muslims and Jews. For Muslims, it is considered the third holiest site located inside the Old City of Jerusalem.
According to a 1967 agreement between Israel and Jordan, non-Muslim worshippers can visit Al-Aqsa Mosque compound but are prohibited from praying there.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future independent state, while Israel wants all Jerusalem to be its eternal capital.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and declared the entire city as its eternal indivisible capital in 1980, a move that has never been recognized by most of the international community.
