Feb. 6, 2007 — In the space of one day, a small archaeological dig in Jerusalem's Old City became a rallying call aimed at uniting Palestinians against Israel.
The dig — a few waterlogged sandbags and black buckets of earth behind aluminum walls — is meant to prepare the way for a new pedestrian walkway up to one of the world's most explosive holy sites, the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
Though archaeologists insist there is no danger to the walled compound, it inflamed Muslim fears that Israel was planning to damage Islamic holy sites and briefly caused rival Palestinian factions to put aside their differences and condemn Israel together.
The new walkway is supposed to replace an unsafe old ramp that partially collapsed in a snowstorm three years ago. But even minor maintenance can have deep implications in Jerusalem.
For Palestinians, no symbol is more emotive than the Noble Sanctuary, where Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven in a nighttime journey recounted in the Quran, the Muslim holy book. The compound houses Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock shrine.
Jews revere the compound as the site of their two ancient temples.
When Israel opened a tunnel alongside the compound in 1996, it sparked clashes that killed 80 people. In 2000, then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the site. The next day, riots erupted, leading to years of violence.
With the Palestinians in the throes of a bloody internal conflict, the Israeli dig offered a chance to display a rare unity.
"Israel, which today is playing with fire when it touches Al-Aqsa, knows the consequences of this playing with fire," said Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Cabinet and advocates Israel's destruction.
Fighting between Hamas and Fatah, the more moderate movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has claimed over 130 lives since May. Despite the internal fissures, Fatah and nearly all other Palestinian factions were not far behind Mashaal.
Islamic Jihad, a small and violent group funded by Syria and Iran and responsible for dozens of suicide attacks on Israelis, warned on its Web site that they would "shake the land underneath the legs of the Zionists" and that Israel was "opening the door for a new war with the Islamic nation."
The Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, a Fatah-linked militant group, weighed in with similar fiery threats, along with Hamas' Qassam Brigades. Inside Israel, Raed Salah, the fiery leader of the Islamic Movement, called on his followers to come from all over the country to protect the site.
But on Monday, the high compound was placid and nearly empty: a handful tourists walked around snapping pictures in a brisk wind, eyed by Israeli policemen and guards from the Islamic Waqf, which administers the holy site.
