Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein that MKs should be responsible and show restraint when it comes to the issue of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu asked that MKs act to encourage the public to be calm and that Edelstein relay the message to them.
"It is very easy to set religious fires. It is much harder to extinguish them," he said at his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.
"What we need now is for tempers to cool," Netanyahu said
Israeli authorities shut all access to the Temple Mount for the first time in over ten years Thursday after the shooting of Yehuda Glick, who has a long history of advocating for Jewish prayer rights at the Temple Mount.
Glick, 49, was shot four times as he left a conference at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, and remains in serious condition following emergency surgery at Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
Convicted Arab terrorist Moataz Hejazi, an Islamic Jihad operative and kitchen worker at an upscale restaurant in the Begin Center who was suspected of shooting him, was killed by police in a shootout outside Hejazi’s Abu Tor home the same night.
The Temple Mount was reopened on Friday.
In his cabinet comments, Netanyahu warned against handing fuel to Muslim extremists looking to exploit the issue.
"(Radical Islamists) want to ignite a religious fire in Jerusalem and through that to set the entire Middle East aflame," he said, adding that the status quo agreed with Jordan after the 1967 Middle East war would not be altered.
"Since the days of Abraham, the Temple Mount has been the holiest site for our people and with this, the Temple Mount is also the most sensitive kilometer on earth," Benjamin Netanyahu said at his weekly cabinet meeting.
"Alongside our determined stance for our rights, we are determined to maintain the status quo for all the religions in order to prevent an eruption," he added.
He said the cabinet, seeking to quell Palestinian unrest, approved draft legislation that would make stone-throwing at vehicles punishable by up to 20 years in jail.