JERUSALEM - Israel conducted a surprise predawn excavation under heavy guard yesterday to complete a long-disputed tunnel below the edge of the Temple Mount, a site sacred to Jews and Muslims alike. Arab leaders reacted in outrage, and stone-throwing Palestinian youths battled police through much of the day, briefly driving Jewish worshippers from the Western Wall.
It was the latest of several military-style operations by Israel's new Likud Party-led government to alter the face of eastern Jerusalem, where the Arab population is predominant and Palestinians seek to build the capital of their hoped-for state.
The political stakes were higher today because the Temple Mount, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque and gold-leafed Dome of the Rock rise over the remains of Judaism's Second Temple, is the rallying point for religious nationalists on both sides.
The rival claims have a recent history of bloodshed exceeded only by Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs, where adherents of the two faiths are also struggling for control of ancient real estate.
"If there's a message here, the only message is that, 'Hey guys, we are not playing games here,'" Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, a senior Likud figure, told reporters yesterday after posing hoe in hand for photographers during the night. "We will not agree that everything that happens in Jerusalem will be subject to negotiation, because we are the sovereign of the city."
There were no serious injuries in yesterday's fighting, which began when crowds of young Palestinians challenged Israeli police guarding the newly cut tunnel exit in the Old City's Muslim Quarter.
Palestinians later burned a car and a truck on Salahedin Street in the commercial heart of East Jerusalem and heaved stones from atop the Temple Mount toward Jews praying at the Western Wall.
Similar clashes in 1990, which began with a plan by Jewish extremists to lay a symbolic cornerstone for new construction on the Temple Mount. This clash ended in the deaths of 17 Palestinians under police gunfire.
Israeli security forces continued to deploy in unusual numbers yesterday night.
Jerusalem police commander Arye Amit predicted further violence today.
The manner of yesterday's excavation, which was concealed from the Islamic religious trust that runs the mosques atop the Temple Mount, reflected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's preference for displays of power on matters touching the governance of Jerusalem.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, speaking to reporters in Gaza, said he had been unable to sleep after learning of the excavations.
He described them as "extremely dangerous."
Arafat also said they were part of an ongoing campaign to "change the characteristics of the city" and appropriate Muslim sites.
AP PHOTO
Israeli soldiers keep guard and an unidentified Israeli man looks on as workers complete the entrance to a 500-yard tunnel that connects the Western Wall with the Via Dolorosa yesterday.