News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) The Western Wall Heritage Foundation has proposed building a tunnel to connect the Western Wall (Kotel) with the Ohel Yitzchak synagogue in the Muslim Quarter. The government and Antiquities Authorities have not yet considered the plan, which needs their approval as well as that of the security service.

Muslim clerics immediately opposed the idea, charging that it its intention is to use underground digging to destroy the Al Aksa mosque, even though the proposed digging is to take place more than 100 yards from the Temple Mount.

The Ohel Yitzchak synagogue was abandoned during the Arab riots in 1936 and later was blown up by Jordanian forces in their conquest of the Jewish Quarter in the War of Independence in 1948.