RIYADH/JERUSALEM, 9 February 2007 — Saudi Arabia yesterday denounced Israeli works near the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as a clear violation of the sanctity of Islam’s third holiest site and called for global intervention to stop them.

“The Kingdom expresses its condemnation of the practices of the Israeli authorities against the third holiest mosque in the Islamic world. The Kingdom urges the international community to intervene and stop the Israeli aggression as well as to firmly confront the practices, which are aimed at desecrating the Islamic and civilized identity of Al-Aqsa Mosque. These actions are considered provocative by Muslims the world over,” a government source was quoted by the Saudi Press Agency as saying.

A Palestinian official in Cairo said the Arab League will convene an urgent meeting of permanent delegates tomorrow to discuss Israeli works. Delegates from the 22-member body are expected to meet at the League’s headquarters in Cairo to discuss “Israel’s continued violations against the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” the source said.

“This Israeli aggression is part of repeated Israeli attempts to impose a status quo in Jerusalem,” said the Palestinian Authority’s representative at the league, Hussein Abdel Khaleq.

The Palestinian Authority called for the meeting “to examine this critical situation which threatens the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the possibility of a joint Arab position in the face of this danger,” he told reporters.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert meanwhile spurned a call by his defense minister to consider halting excavations near the sacred site.

The dig, outside a compound housing the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, has exposed the depth of Arab suspicions over Israeli activities in Arab East Jerusalem and the simmering tensions between Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz.

Arab states have asked Israel to halt the work, charging it could damage the mosque’s foundations. Palestinians have threatened to end a three-month old Gaza truce with Israel.

Israel said the holy places would not be harmed by what it called an attempt, mandated by law, to salvage artifacts before construction of a pedestrian bridge leading to Al-Haram Al-Sharif.

An Israeli official, confirming a report in the Haaretz newspaper, said Peretz, leader of Olmert’s main coalition partner, the center-left Labor Party, had sent a written appeal to the prime minister asking for the project to be reassessed.

“Our problem with the work at the Temple Mount... is its effect on our relations with important, moderate elements in the Arab world who are very angered by it,” Labor’s Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh told Israel Radio.

Israeli officials called the project essential as an existing ramp leading up to the complex was considered unsafe after it was damaged by a snowstorm and an earthquake in 2004.

Olmert’s office said the excavations, some 50 meters from the base of the compound, would go on. “A thorough examination of the matter would reveal that nothing about the work under way will harm anyone, and there is no truth in the contentions against the work,” it said, in a snub to Peretz.

Israeli media have been rife with reports that Olmert wants to replace the former trade union chief, who has little military experience, and appoint former Prime Minister Ehud Barak as defense minister.

Peretz and Barak, Israel’s most decorated soldier, will do battle in a Labor Party leadership vote in May.

Citing the Jerusalem excavations, the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, which had not signed on to the November cease-fire, said it fired rockets from Gaza at Israel. The attack caused no serious damage.

In a series of skirmishes with Palestinians, police have arrested some 30 people in Jerusalem since the work began Tuesday and many are still detained, a police spokesman said.

“There is no doubt that tomorrow will be the test,” Jerusalem police chief Ilan Franco told Army Radio, referring to today’s Friday prayers.

Israeli police, out in force, blocked the Mufti, the most senior Islamic religious figure in Jerusalem, and officials of the Islamic religious trust from approaching the compound.

The shrine has been a flashpoint of violence in the past. A Palestinian uprising began in 2000 after then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon toured the hilltop area.

Israel’s opening of an entrance to an archaeological tunnel near Al-Haram Al-Sharif in 1996 triggered Palestinian protests and led to clashes in which 61 Arabs and 15 Israeli soldiers died.