Did Benjamin Netanyahu announce that the replacement of the Al-Aqsa Mosque with the Third Temple in Jerusalem has already been budgeted for 2024? No, that's not true: The prime minister of Israel has not made any such statements at the time of writing, and there are no such items in the state budget for 2023-2024.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok by @ivans8272 on October 22, 2023. This video in Russian with the same caption has spread quite widely on the TikTok platform, for example, here or here. It can be found using the keywords exactly as they appear on the screen (translated by Lead Stories staff):
A nun from Jerusalem reveals the plan
In the footage, the woman wearing an Orthodox nun's headdress says (translated from Russian by Lead Stories staff):
What are all these wars for, to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and build the Third Temple in Jerusalem....
3 days ago, before Friday's war, Netanyahu announced that a budget has already been set for the year 2024 on Peisyah to build the Third Jerusalem Temple in place of the Mosque.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Nov 8 12:33:15 2023 UTC)
Research has revealed that the woman on the screen is in fact a nun named Yefrosinya who lives in Jerusalem. She appeared on the Moscow Patriarchate's TV channel "SPAS," a video fragment of which was used by TikToker. A review of official Israeli government documents (translated from Hebrew by Lead Stories staff using online translators) does not support the claim that the budget includes the construction of the Third Temple to replace the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
On April 5, 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an official statement saying: "Israel is committed to maintaining freedom of worship, free access for all faiths and the status quo on the Temple Mount [where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located] and will not allow violent extremists to change this." (archived here)
