The foundation said in a press statement that the “Israeli occupation is carrying out excavations in the area at night, especially in one of the water wells in the area which extends under the Al-Aqsa Mosque and are covered with tents and plastic sheets.”

It added that the Israeli authorities are “constructing a network of bridges and iron stairs in the historic area to transfer it to facilities of the so-called second temple.”

It added that the Israeli authorities would build a biblical park in the site, connected with a tunnel with the East Jerusalem’s town of Silwan. The foundation said the park would be exclusively intended for Jews and tourists.

The foundation said that the excavation in the Umayyad Palaces area reached tens of meters. It warned that the use of huge machines in the excavation works in the area inflicts serious danger to the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, noting that similar excavations, which were carried out in the past, led to cracks in the southern part of the mosque’s wall.

The foundation described the Israeli move as “a theft and piracy against the Islamic civilization and culture.”

According to the foundation, the excavations are part of “an Israeli scheme to Judaize the vicinity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque from all sides and the collapse of Al-Aqsa Mosque to build the so-called second temple on ruins of it.”

Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, denounced the Israeli move.

Hussein said that “Israel, in accordance to international rules and treaties, is forbidden from excavation works and confiscating the antiquities.”

He urged the urged the Arab, Islamic and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to pressure the Israeli government to stop what he described as “crimes against Jerusalem.”

In last April, the Israel stole Umayyad-era stone from the same area and was transferred to the courtyard of the Israeli Knesset in the southern part of Jerusalem.

Israel rejected Palestinian calls to return the stone to the Al-Aqsa Compound.

Israel captured East Jerusalem in the June 1967 War, annexed it, and has since built settlements there that are home to more than 200,000 Israelis.

Control over the city has been seen as the most sensitive and thorniest issue of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians hope to make East Jerusalem the capital of their future state but the Israel says the city is its eternal capital.