MIDDLE EAST: Israeli excavation in Jerusalem stirs Palestinian anger

Israeli excavation work on Tuesday (February 6, 2007) near an entrance to a compound in Jerusalem that houses al-Aqsa mosque sparked Palestinian anger despite Israeli assurances the dig would not harm Islam's third holiest shrine. Israeli police stationed reinforcements in the alleyways of Jerusalem's walled Old City to head off feared Palestinian violence at a flashpoint site that is at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel's Antiquities Authority said it was searching for artefacts at the base of the compound known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount before construction of a pedestrian bridge to replace a ramp leading up to the complex. "All the work that we are conducting here is absolutely outside the limits of the Temple Mount," chief archaeologist for Israel's Antiquities Authority, Gidon Avni said. "We are standing about 50 metres from the wall. Nothing will be conducted within the area of the wall, it is absolutely ordinary work which is connected to the replacement of the existing ramp, you can see the ramp leading to the entrance, one of the entrances to the Temple Mount," he added Reuters has obtained exclusive video which shows the activities that have taken place under the holy shrine. In 2004, an Jewish association 'ElAd' started to dig a tunnel 12 metres into the earth and it is believed there are plans for this digging to continue toward the area underneath the holy shrine. On Tuesday, two bulldozers began breaking up parts of the pavement at the foot of the ramp, which was damaged by a snowstorm and an earthquake in 2004, to clear the way for what the authority called a "salvage excavation". After an all-clear from the authority that no artefacts remain, plans can be finalised for the 100-metre (yard)-long pedestrian bridge to the Mughrabi Gate entrance to Haram al-Sharif, which overlooks Judaism's Western Wall. In Bethlehem, crowds of Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers outside Rachel's Tomb, a holy site at the entrance to the West Bank city. The soldiers responded with tear gas. Acting chairman of the restoration committee of al Aqsa Mosque Raif Nijem condemned the excavations near Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque warning they could damage the al-Aqsa building itself. "We were astonished by noticing that some bulldozers, Israeli bulldozers, came to the Bab al Magharibah, al Magharbah gate, and they started to demolish the approach road and two rooms there. Which are near al Boraq Mosque. And this will lead to danger to al Aqsa building itself. We have advised the Israeli authorities in Jerusalem last week and several times before that they should not touch this road," he said Nijiem went on to appeal to to the U.S, France, and Britain to act and stop Israel from completing the excavations which he considers an aggressive act. "The authorities in Israel, they know that they have no right at all, religious right or historical right at all, so they are using force now. They are doing all their aggressive actions by force. How to stop such force, it needs a force. We can not apply force against the occupiers, they are occupying Jerusalem. So this should be done by the Americans, the French people, the British people, only to these people they can listen - the Israelis," he said Israel's opening of an entrance to an archaeological tunnel near Haram al-Sharif in 1996 touched off violent Palestinian protests and led to clashes in which 61 Arabs and 15 Israeli soldiers were killed. Al-Aqsa Mosque is situated inside the Haram al-Sherif compound, alongside the Dome of the Rock. Al-Aqsa mosque is the third holiest site for Muslims worldwide after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. To the Jews, the site is known as the Temple Mount, and believed to be built atop the remains of the two destroyed Jewish temples. Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 conflict in a step that has not been recognised internationally. Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as the capital of a future state.

ITN Source | February 6, 2007

Tags:. .ordinary. .aggressive. .overlooks. .condemned. .stirs