Excavations of the occupation under and around Al-Aqsa Mosque

Occupied Al-Quds, (ST) – The Israeli occupation continues  excavations work below and around Al-Aqsa Mosque, especially on the southern and western sides adjacent to its walls in the areas of the Al-Buraq Wall in an attempt to change its historical and cultural features and Judaize it.

Adviser to the Palestinian Presidency’s Office for Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Affairs, Ahmed Al-Ruwaidi, warned yesterday of the danger of the occupation’s excavations on the foundations of the mosque.

In a statement to SANA’s reporter, the Undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments Hussam Abu Al-Rub confirmed that the occupation has escalated its attacks on Al-Aqsa through the operations of Judaization and settlers’ storming of its courtyards and the establishment of more settlement outposts in its surroundings and through tunnels and huge excavations, This matter which constitutes a crime and a flagrant aggression against the sanctities that international laws and resolutions guarantee their protection .

The Undersecretary of Palestinian Endowments called on the UN Security Council to send an international investigation committee to follow up on the excavations of the occupation, which are now threatening the existence of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the historical buildings surrounding it.

Director of Al-Quds International Center Hassan Khater indicated that the excavations in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa and the Al-Buraq Wall took place in multiple stages during the past decades. He pointed out that the occupation began by expanding the Silwan Tunnel, which extends hundreds of meters from Ain Silwan to the bottom of the Al-Buraq Wall, to branch out of a network of tunnels that threaten all historical buildings in the region.

Khater pointed out that the intensive and accelerating occupation excavations since the beginning of June caused the fall of a stone from a marble pillar inside the old Al-Aqsa Mosque under the Al-Qibli prayer hall, and another stone in the library area adjacent to the old prayer hall from the outside overlooking the Umayyad palaces. He pointed out that the cracks affect all the buildings located in the southern third of Al-Aqsa Mosque and are expanding day after day, threatening them with collapse.

The Council of Endowments, Islamic Affairs and Holy Sanctuaries in occupied Jerusalem had warned against the continued Israeli occupation by sabotaging and changing the historical and religious monuments of Al-Aqsa Mosque. It stressed that the Al-Buraq Square and the Umayyad Palaces area were a purely Islamic endowment and that it constituted an extension of Al-Aqsa, which has a full area of 144 dunums.

The Council demanded the necessity to adhere to international resolutions, especially the UNESCO decision On the 18th of October 2016, which confirms that Al-Aqsa is a place of worship purely for Muslims alone.

Raghda Sawas