A new tunnel is being built connecting the Silwan Settlement to the Western Wall and will be completed within a month. The construction of the tunnel has already caused foundational damages to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.The construction of the tunnel has caused damages to the foundations of the resident’s houses since the building of the tunnel is occurring beneath the resident’s houses.
The tunnel is being built underneath the old road leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This will be the seventh tunnel built underneath the Silwan Neighborhoods.
During construction of the tunnel, workers found a bell dating to the second temple period of Jerusalem according to what Fakhri Abu Diyab, a member of an organization to defend the Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem, told the Palestinian News Network.
Right-wing settler organizations persuaded the Israeli Government to construct the temple underneath the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in an effort to find more antiquities that date back to the Second Temple era: such findings serve to justify Israeli Occupation.