Two thousand members of the Israeli police force were on guard in Jerusalem as Palestinians and leaders of the Arab world hotly protested excavations and repairs in the Old City of Jerusalem near a hotly disputed holy site.
Police restricted worship at the al-Aqsa mosque on Tuesday and kept the limits in force yesterday as archeologists and a bulldozer worked outside the hilltop known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
Muslims are angry at Israel's plan to build a new walkway up to the compound where Islamic tradition says Mohammed ascended to heaven and which Jews revere as the site of their two ancient temples. Israel said the project is needed to replace a centuries-old earthen ramp that partially collapsed in a snowstorm three years ago. Its assurances that the work would cause no harm to Islam's holy sites did little to soothe tensions.
"What is happening is an aggression," Mohammed Hussein, the top Muslim cleric in Jerusalem, told the Gaza Strip radio station of the Hamas militant movement. "We call on the Palestinian people to unite and unify the efforts to protect Jerusalem."
The small dig, 50m away from the walls of the hilltop compound in Jerusalem's Old City, was meant to ensure that no important artifacts are damaged by the walkway's construction, which is expected to be completed in eight months. Such exploratory digs were required by Israeli law in the ancient city.
"The construction of the bridge, located in its entirety outside the Temple Mount, has no impact on the Mount itself and certainly poses no danger to it," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said.
"There is nothing on earth that can cause damage to the walls of the Temple Mount and certainly not to any structures inside," said Gideon Avni, the archeologist in charge of excavations and surveys at the Israeli Antiquities Authority.
Security forces were on high alert on Tuesday, the first day that workers began dismantling the original earth ramp. Police restricted access for Muslims to Israeli Arab men and east Jerusalem residents over the age of 45.
Jerusalem police said the security measures would remain in effect through yesterday.
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