A view of the golden Dome of the Rock mosque, center, at Al Aqsa mosque compound

Additional Reporting By Samer Khuwayera, Atef Daghlas  ,IOL Correspondents

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, July 25 (IslamOnline.net) – Extremist Jews might be plotting a deadly attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque to kill the Middle East peace process stone-dead and derail Israeli proposed pullout of the Gaza Strip, a senior Israeli security official has warned.

Prominent Palestinian religious figures and analysts, for their part, urged an immediate action from the Muslim world on serious threats to Islam’s third holiest place, warning of malicious Israeli intentions to control and judaize the mosque.

"We sense that the level of threat to the Temple Mount [the Jewish name of Al-Aqsa Mosque] from the standpoint of extreme and fanatic Jewish elements carrying out a terrorist attack in order to reshuffle the cards to serve as a catalyst to a change in the entire political initiative," Israeli Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi said Saturday night, July 24.

Speaking to Israel ’s Channel Two "Meet the Press" program, Hanegbi said the threat level has risen in recent months and weeks "more than at any time in the past", Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

"There is no information about specific individuals, because the Shin Bet and police would not let them continue [with their plot]," he argued.

"But there are troubling indications of purposeful thinking, and not detached philosophy... There is a danger that [extremists] would make use of the most explosive site, in the hope that a chain reaction would bring about the destruction of the peace process," Hanegbi said

‘Worthy’

Hanegbi said Jewish extremists might attack the mosque to change the entire political initiative

Yehuda Etzion, one of the leaders of a plot in the early 1980s to blow up the mosque, told the Israeli army radio that blowing up the Dome of the Rock, the gilded mosque at the center of the compound, was a "worthy" goal.

But urged fellow extremists to display restraint and support Israeli Premier Sharon’s controversial disengagement plan.

"Losing one's patience after so many years of distortion is something understandable," Etzion said.

"Is this a worthy act? First of all, it is worthy. On the other hand, it is unworthy as an act to thwart the disengagement."

Israeli security sources told Haaretz that possible actions included an attempt to crash a drone packed with explosives into the mosque.

A manned suicide attack with a light aircraft during mass Muslim worship is also possible, they added.

Other possibilities, Israeli security sources said, include an attempt by right-wing extremists to assassinate a prominent imam.

Nine months ago a suspect in a Jewish underground terror group affair, Shahar Dvir-Zeliger, told Israeli authorities a prominent West Bank settler activist had planned a mosque attack, Haaretz said.

Zeliger cited two other names of West Bank settlers, suggesting the duo were involved in the conspiracy.

On February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a well-known leader of Jewish extremist Kach group, entered Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank town of Al-Khalil and emptied two clips of a machinegun into Muslim worshippers during the dawn prayer, killing at least 50 people and injured 200 others.

Israeli occupation soldiers used tear gas and guarded the entrance of the mosque after they heard gunfire, which contributed to the difficulty of evacuating the dead and injured.

Some eyewitnesses reported that Israeli soldiers took part in the shooting afterward.

Goldstein was said to have died inside the mosque, but it is not clear if he killed himself or was killed in the melee after opening fire.

Ill Intentions

Sabri said if Israel had good intentions it would have taken "protectionist and preventive measures"

Al-Quds Mufti Ekrema Sabri said the Israeli warning is driven by ill intentions to put the holy place under the occupation grip and not out of Israeli concerns at the mosque’s safety.

"A case in point is Israel ’s deployment of more troops to the mosque after Al-Ibrahimi incident, but occupation authorities denied Muslims access to it and imposed stringent and humiliating search measures," Sabri told IslamOnline.net.

"If they [the Israeli] had had really good intentions, they would have taken protectionist and preventive measures, for instance, keeping low profile inside the mosque and deploy more troops to its gates and surroundings to prevent and arrest extremist Jews."

Following Al-Ibrahimi massacre, an Israeli committee split the mosque into two Muslim and Jewish divisions, piling up sandbags and setting up many of iron gates.

Kamal Al-Khatib, deputy chief of the Islamic Movement inside what is today Israel , agreed that Israel was not keen on protecting Al-Aqsa mosque.

He said the main purpose of such stark warnings is to thwart the disengagement plan aimed primarily at evacuating Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and some parts of the West Bank .

Ashraf Al-Agrami, a Palestinian political analyst, agreed with Khatib on Israeli schemes to scupper the planned Israeli withdrawal.

But he said if the Jewish extremists attacked the mosque, Sharon would press on with his plans as he only cares about his electoral platform.

Al-Agrami told IOL that Hanegbi’s warnings could rather serve as a message to Sharon to expedite the implementation of his pullout plan in view of recent death threats to the hawkish premier by Jewish extremists.

Serious Threats

Palestinian Chief Justice Taysir Al-Tamimi called on Muslims worldwide not to take the Israeli warnings at face value.

He said Jewish extremists are serious this time in destroying and judaizing the mosque.

Khatib added that extremist Jewish groups believe that God’s curse would befall them should they fail to establish their so-called " Temple Mount " by 2005.

Israel claims Al-Aqsa Mosque was built on the so-called Temple Mount , an allegation refuted by scores of world historians.

Many were the times when Israeli occupation forces had stormed the mosque’s esplanade and clashed with worshippers.

Archeologists have also warned that ongoing Israeli excavations weakened the foundations of the mosque, cautioning it would not stand a powerful earthquake.

A part of the road leading to one of the mosque’s main gates collapsed in February due to the destructive Israeli digging work.

More recently, Israeli soldiers attempted on June 29 to storm the mosque’s prayer hall (Al-Musallah Al-Marwani) and end by force the restoration work there.