Israel continues to burrow beneath the foundations of the Aqsa Mosque in the heart of East Jerusalem, reports Khaled Amayreh

A network of tunnels beneath the Aqsa Mosque, dubbed by the Israeli media as "tourist sites", has already caused conspicuous cracks in superstructure of the Haram Al-Sharif esplanade which houses many historical sites, including the Dome of the Rock. "I have no doubt the Israeli government has the will and desire to destroy the Aqsa Mosque. They only want to do it in a way that would make the demolition look as if it was a result of natural causes," said Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, head of the Supreme Muslim Council which oversees the Jerusalem Sanctuary, considered the third holiest place in Islam. "Everything they do here shows they are hell-bent on destroying this Islamic shrine. It is time that Muslim peoples, Muslim governments and Muslim organisations across the world move to stop this blasphemy. Maybe tomorrow it will be too late."

Palestinian and Muslim officials, including the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), have issued numerous warnings about Israeli excavations in the vicinity of and beneath the mosque, but to no avail. Last week Jordan, the legal custodian of the Jerusalem sanctuary, asked Israel to stop sabotaging the foundations of the Aqsa Mosque, warning that, "this sensitive issue could set the whole region on fire."

The international community, including Israel's closest ally the United States, does not recognise Israel's annexation of Eastern Jerusalem which followed the occupation of the city in 1967. Not that this has prevented successive Israeli governments from building huge Jewish settlements in and around the occupied Arab town, reducing East Jerusalem to a virtual ghetto and effectively cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank. The isolation of East Jerusalem has been completed with the construction of the gigantic "separation wall".