The collapsed area is only meters away from the Western Wall. Following the incident, the Israeli police sealed off the site and forbade anyone from approaching it. The Palestinian Archeological community has accused Tel Aviv of purposefully damaging Islam’s third holiest mosque.
Palestinian officials are worried about the political implications and how the excavations could affect the Palestinian main street. They’ve warned about outburst of violence should anything happen to Al-Aqsa Mosque. Years of Israeli excavations and digging tunnels under the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound and the areas around it have inflicted serious damage on the holy site and even rooted up some of the old trees in its court yards.
Such Israeli excavations threaten al-Aqsa Mosque’s very foundations, and the digging could one day bring down the Islamic holy site and with it, the deep history it once held.
Press TV