The head of the Jerusalem Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Adnan Al-Husseini, called on the Security Council, the international community, and the Arab and Islamic nations to assume their historical, political, legal and moral responsibilities to stop the systematic Israeli crimes against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and to intervene urgently to stop the excavations in the vicinity of the mosque, before it is too late.

Al-Husseini added, in a statement he received Jerusalem News Agency A copy of it: “It has become clear that the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque is going through the most dangerous stage in its history, and in a dangerous and unprecedented step aimed at realizing the Zionist dreams of establishing the alleged temple on its ruins, and Judaizing Al-Aqsa Mosque, which constitutes the religious depth of the Arab and Islamic nations,” pointing to the exploitation of the occupation. It is clear that the world is preoccupied with various international crises and the increasing pace of free normalization at the expense of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian Arab people.

Al-Husseini stressed that the Palestinian leadership is viewing and following with utmost seriousness the Israeli plan and the ongoing excavation work in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the attempts to reach the bottom of its courtyards and components from the southwestern side, and the work of dismantling the stones of the facade of the Khatniyya Library overlooking the Umayyad palaces from the outside, and preventing the Islamic Endowments Department from its responsibilities in the work. Restoration and disruption of its projects inside and outside Al-Aqsa Mosque, in an open attempt to hide the historical character, considering all of this to constitute a blatant violation of the relevant UN resolutions, and their contradiction with international and humanitarian law, most notably the UNESCO resolutions issued in this regard.

He pointed out that all excavations since the beginning of the occupation in 1967 have increased in frequency recently to the point where they pose a great danger to Al-Aqsa Mosque and leave negative and dangerous effects on its components, the most important of which is the danger of penetrating the settlements and voids below Al-Aqsa to control them and thus control the entirety of Al-Aqsa.

The statement considered the excavations a systematic destruction of many antiquities above and below the ground, and the demolition of archaeological layers from all Arab and then Islamic periods, from the Umayyad to the Ottoman, and leading to consolidating the occupation’s control over the land, above and below it, and transforming it into Judaizing settlement facilities that serve the Zionist project.