JERUSALEM – A Palestinian cleric claimed Israel is excavating under the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem “like rats burrow underground” for “evil and destruction,” Palestinian Media Watch reported.

According to Sheikh Raed Da’na from the Religious Source of Authority in Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa has no foundations because Israel is digging under it.

“Al-Aqsa is now empty of the rocks and that which supports it, due to the Israeli machine that is excavating under it as rats burrow under the ground only for evil and destruction,” Da’na said in a TV program broadcast on official Palestinian Authority television.

Israel does not carry out any excavations underneath the Al-Aqsa mosque or the area of the Temple Mount on which it stands, in accordance with its agreement with the Waqf Islamic trust that administers the Muslim holy site.

Nevertheless, the Palestinian leadership continues to spread the libel that Israel conspires to destroy the mosque.

The 2015 so-called knife intifada was also called the Al-Aqsa intifada, with Palestinian leaders urging terrorists to carry out dozens of attacks in order to “save Al-Aqsa.”

Hamas justified the murder of Ari Fuld by a Palestinian teenager this week by suggesting that that it was to avenge the “danger” posed by Israel to the mosque.

“While blessing this heroic operation, we emphasize that harming the Al-Aqsa Mosque is a red line, and that this operation is a response to warnings regarding the danger of what the occupation is currently doing, and what it intends to do at the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” Hamas said in a statement cited by independent Palestinian news agency Donia Al-Watan.

The Palestinians have in the past claimed that Israel is allegedly destroying the foundations of the mosque in a plethora of ways, including mice, rats, and injecting chemicals into the rocks.

Palestinian Media Watch reported PA Chief Religious Justice Tayseer Tamimi’s claim that Israel was excavating in order “to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In fact, its foundations have been removed.”

“Chemical acids were injected into the rocks to dissolve them. The soil and the pillars [were moved] so the mosque is hanging in midair. There is an Israeli plan to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to build the Temple,” Tamimi said according to a PMW translation of PA TV.

Earlier this month, Abbas’ supreme Shari’a adviser Mahmoud Al-Habbash “emphasized the need to stop the ongoing crime against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is bowing under the yoke of the occupation and is being subjected to criminal attempts to divide, destroy and Judaize it.”