(31 Aug 2007)
1. Mid shot of Haram as-Sharif (as it's known to Muslims) Temple Mount (as it's known to Jews)
2. Wide shot of bulldozer working at the compound
3. Various of construction workers working at the compound
4. Mid shot of worker at the compound digging tunnel
5. Close up of tunnel dug by workers
6. Various of trench
7. Bulldozer moving through site
8. Wide of compound
9. Wide shot of press conference if Israeli archaeologists
10. SOUDNBITE: (English) Dr. Gabi Barkay, Israeli archaeologist:
"In the last week, the Islamic Waqf authorities upon the Temple Mount have carried out a barbaric act of excavating illicitly a long tunnel, or a long channel, which is approximately 400 metres long, for some infrastructure. This channel destroyed several layers of ancient remains upon the Temple Mount. It reached the bedrock to the depth of 1.5 metres already. the trench encountered also a built wall, which could have belonged to the outer courtyards of the Temple itself."
11. Various of excavation site
STORYLINE:
Israeli archaeologists have alleged that construction work at Jerusalem's holiest site for Muslims and Jews has damaged a wall that might date back to the biblical-era Jewish temple.
Islamic authorities however who are responsible for the Haram as-Sharif, the site of the Al Aqsa mosque - which Jews call Temple Mount - said the construction work was being done to replace 40-year-old electrical cables.
They called the archaeologists' charges "sheer propaganda."
The hilltop compound is a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of conflicting claims to the site.
Home to the silver-domed Al Aqsa Mosque and gold-capped Dome of the Rock, it is Islam's third-holiest shrine.
Jews revere it as the site of the two biblical Jewish temples, though Muslim clerics dispute that.
"The Islamic Waqf authorities upon the Temple Mount have carried out a barbaric act of excavating illicitly a long tunnel, or a long channel, which is approximately 400 metres long, for some infrastructure," Israeli archaeologist Dr. Gabi Barkay said in Jerusalem on Thursday.
Barkay said the "channel destroyed several layers of ancient remains upon the Temple Mount."
"It reached the bedrock to the depth of 1.5 metres already. The trench encountered also a built wall, which could have belonged to the outer courtyards of the (Second) Temple itself," he added.
The Second Temple was built by Cyprus the Great of Persia in 515 B.C. and renovated by Herod beginning in 19 B.C. It was destroyed in the Roman sacking of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
Competing claims to the complex have erupted in sometimes deadly violence several times since Israel captured it from Jordan in the June 1967 war and subsequently occupied it.
Israel has left its day-to-day administration to the Waqf and barred Jews from praying there out of respect for Muslim sensitivities.
However Jewish sovereignty has been seen by Muslims as an affront to their religion and by Palestinians as a desecration of their most important national symbol.
Disagreements over who should control the holy site have played a leading role in scuttling past peace talks.
The top Muslim cleric in Jerusalem, Mufti Mohammed Hussein, rejected the Israel group's charges.
"We don't harm the antiquities, we are the ones who are taking care of the antiquities, unlike others who destroy them," the mufti said.
Digging for the cable was completed on Wednesday, the Waqf said, but AP reporters at the site on Thursday afternoon saw work was still continuing.
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