(MENAFN- Emirates News Agency (WAM))
ABU DHABI, 21st February, 2017 (WAM) -- A UAE newspaper has said that Israeli authorities in Occupied Jerusalem have committed another gross assault on the legitimate control of Al Haram Al Sharif, Islam's third most holy site.
"They have illegally taken over the management of the remains of the Umayyad palaces to the south of Al Haram Al Sharif, where they hope to find some remnant of the biblical city buried under the Umayyad remains," said the Gulf News in an editorial on Tuesday.
The paper continued, "The move is part of the Israelis' Zionist agenda for Occupied Jerusalem, which they want to turn into a Jewish city and a Jewish capital and remove its Islamic heritage, which threatens that political objective.
"As part of a sustained campaign to deepen the Israeli occupation, they have belittled and sidelined the legitimate authorities, under the pretext that all of Jerusalem has to be managed by the Israeli mayor and the Israeli municipality.
"The Israeli forces have a particular interest in attacking Al Haram Al Sharif, which is where the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque stand.
"It is the site where the Jewish temple stood that was totally destroyed almost 2,000 years ago in the first century AD, but the Israelis are desperate to find some physical remains that can reinforce their desire to eliminate 1,400 years of Muslim history.
"This is why they are burrowing under Al Haram Al Sharif in tunnels as they look for ancient remains, while also dangerously weakening Al Haram Al Sharif itself.
"These so-called archaeological exercises are in fact a process of cultural destruction which fits into an overall pattern of making life so difficult for the Jerusalemite Palestinians that they get fed up and leave, as Israel seeks to expunge an entire people and their history."
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