RAMALLAH – Dozens of Israeli soldiers and agents of internal intelligence service Shin Bet stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound in occupied Jerusalem, a Palestinian official said. The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage said that a group of 87 female soldiers in their uniforms and a group 39 of Shin Bet agents stormed the Muslim's third holiest shrine through the Al-Magharebah gate that connects the mosque with the Al-Buraq Plaza (the Western Wall Plaza). The foundation said that the two groups toured the Al-Aqsa Mosque plaza under the heavy guard of Israeli police and Border Guard officers. No clashes with Muslim worshipers were reported. The foundation said that Israel has longstanding plans to take control of the Al-Aqsa compound. It underlined the fact that the second Intifada, also called the Al-Aqsa uprising was sparked on 28 September, 2000, by a controversial visit by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. On last July, the rightist Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel said that the government has to build the second temple on the ruins of the Al-Aqsa Mosque Complex. Ariel, form the rightist Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party, reportedly said that the “we have built many buildings, including many ‘small temples',” employing a term used in the Jewish world to refer to synagogues. “We need something that is not like the Temple. We need the Temple. On the Temple Mount (Al-Aqsa Mosque Complex),” Ariel told participants at the Shilo Conference on Biblical Research and Archaeology. Shilo settlement located to the north of Ramallah in the West Bank.
