RAMALLAH/JERUSALEM, 15 March 2007 — “We call upon the UNESCO not to be biased with Israel regarding the excavations at Al-Magharebah Gate in Al-Aqsa Mosque compound,” the Grand Mufti of Palestine Sheikh Mohammed Hussein told Arab News yesterday in response to Israeli media reports that the UNESCO report on the controversial Israeli excavation works in Jerusalem has concluded that it is not damaging the holy site.
Sheikh Hussein also called on the international organization to “take into consideration the Islamic Waqf’s point of view once evaluating the excavation works which harms the Al Aqsa Mosque.” “Al-Magharebah Gate is part of the mosque and any harm of it is a harm of the mosque,” he added. He refused to comment on the report until its official publication. The Yediot Ahronot quoted Israeli officials saying on Tuesday that the report calls on Israel to suspend the dig to allow for international observation.
A report by a team of UN experts calls on Israel to halt excavations near Jerusalem’s most sacred Islamic site and proceed only under international supervision, Israeli officials said yesterday.
The Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which sent experts to the site last month, was expected to issue its report publicly as early as today.
“While recognizing that the archaeological works under way are being carried out according to professional standards, the mission expressed its concern regarding the lack of a clear work plan setting the limits of the activity, thereby opening the possibility of extensive and unnecessary excavations,” the UNESCO report states, according to officials with access to the findings.
The UNESCO report calls on Israel to suspend the project and draw up a new work plan in consultation with Jordanian authorities and the Waqf, a body that oversees Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, a third of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are built on private Palestinian land, an anti-settlement group said in a report yesterday. The left-wing group Peace Now said 32.4 percent of the land held by Jewish settlements in the West Bank was privately owned by Palestinians. An earlier report by the same group estimated the figure at 40 percent. Peace Now said it based its new findings on the database of Israel’s military-run Civil Administration in the West Bank.
