PALESTINIAN and Israeli envoys to the United Nations traded insults at a security council meeting on Thursday over an Israeli minister’s widely criticised visit to Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound.

Abandoning the usual diplomatic niceties, Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan branded the session “pathetic” and “absurd,” while the Palestinian envoy accused Tel Aviv of acting “with absolute contempt.”

The 15-member council discussed the visit, which has enraged Palestinians, at the UN headquarters in New York following a request by the United Arab Emirates and China.

Before it took place, Israel’s UN permanent representative, Mr Erdan said: “To hold a security council session on a non-event is truly absurd.”

Tuesday’s visit by new far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir sparked a wave of international condemnation, including, unusually, from Israel’s closest ally the United States.

The al-Aqsa mosque compond lies in Israeli-occupied east Jerusalem and is both the third-holiest site in Islam and the most sacred place to Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount.

Under a longstanding arrangement known as the “status quo,” non-Muslims can visit the site at specific times but are not allowed to pray there.

Mr Erdan asserted that Mr Ben-Gvir’s visit was “in line with the status quo and whoever claims otherwise is only inflaming the situation.

“To claim that this brief and completely legitimate visit should spark an emergency security council session is pathetic,” he added.

Palestinian UN ambassador Riyad Mansour accused Israel of acting “with absolute contempt” for his people and the entire international community.

“What red line does Israel need to cross for the security council to finally say: ‘Enough is enough’ and to act accordingly?” he asked.

US diplomat Robert Wood said that Washington opposed “any and all unilateral actions that depart from the historic status quo.”

The UN security council supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.