AL-QUDS (MEMO) –
Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has called for urgent action to protect Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Zionist regime’s excavations that are endangering its foundations.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Hamas said the “continued excavations carried out by the Zionist occupation authorities in the areas of the al-Buraq Wall and the Umayyad palaces are a direct threat to the foundations and walls of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and an attempt to obliterate the Islamic and historical landmarks of the city of Al-Quds.”
It said it held the occupying regime fully responsible for the repercussions of these serious violations and called on the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan that is custodian of Al-Aqsa Mosque “to move urgently to stop these malicious colonial schemes in order to protect Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
Earlier, the Council of Endowments, Islamic Affairs and Holy Sanctuaries in the city of Al-Quds said it is following with “extreme concern” the “excavations” that the Zionist regime is conducting in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The council added in a statement that the occupying regime’s antiquities authority and the Elad settlement association have been conducting “suspicious and mysterious excavations” in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Mosque, especially near the southern and western sides adjacent to the external foundation of the mosque.
Earlier this month, Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said the Zionist regime has failed to establish any historical link with the city of Al-Quds despite continuous excavations of sacred sites there.
“Fifty-five years of excavations and tunnel digging did not prove that there is a temple in the city,” Shtayyeh told a conference titled ‘Property Documentation and the Historical Status of the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque’ in the central West Bank city of al-Bireh on June 8.