The popular resistance against the ongoing Israeli aggressions at Al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem's Old City have slowed down for the time being, while Israeli forces have accelerated the excavations. A new tunnel beneath the walls of the Muslim holy site is near completion, threatening the mosque with collapse.
Director of Al Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Farid Yahya, says that Israeli forces worked day and night at an unprecedented pace to dig a tunnel concealed from view. They managed to do so, the Sheikh said Saturday, by going in through a small shop that they bought on Al Wad Street near Ras Al Amud for 60,000 dollars.
Yahya said they began digging a tunnel from the inside, working clandestinely and quickly, after closing the shop doors. The work is ongoing in several directions around Al Wad Street leading to the gates of Al Aqsa Mosque.
The Israeli administration had been able to appease the international community by installing a camera in one area of the excavations and showing other investigative groups particular spots of work, with the only claim in one area to be that they were building a Jewish synagogue, said Yahya. “This is going on in broad daylight, but they were able to portray what is happening in the media as fairly innocuous. This is not an individual incident. Follow-up shows that many excavations that lead to full takeovers have been carried out in this way.”
And from Al-Hayat al-Jadeedah (autotranslated):
The director of charts at the Orient House, Khalil Tufakji said that the Israeli authorities continue excavation work and confidential under the walls of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and facilities, the aim being to weaken the foundations of the mosque in order to create the conditions leading to the fall of the mosque in a shorter period.The same source also says that the crazy Sheikh Raed Salah met with UNESCO where he rejected their claims that Israel was not harming anything - and then he added that Israel is using acid to dissolve the foundations of the mosque.
Tufakji and confirmed in a statement to the press yesterday, that there were tunnels under the Israeli walls of the al-Aqsa Mosque to speed up installations in the collapse of the mosque, which is a serious attack on the inviolability and sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Personally, I want to know how I can buy a shop right next to the Temple Mount for only $60,000, and where I can get a hold of this acid that can destroy huge stones that weigh hundreds of tons. It would sure save a lot in expensive excavation equipment.