Three days after Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem in June 1967, Israeli authorities demolished the Moroccan Quarter of the Old City in its entirety.

135 Palestinian homes were destroyed overnight. 650 Muslim residents were expelled.

The demolition cleared the ground that became the Western Wall Plaza.

Excavations began immediately under the new Ministry of Religion.

The first tunnel, later called the Hasmonean Tunnel, was dug along the western side of the Al Aqsa compound.

It runs 500 metres. Access to independent archaeologists and surveyors has been denied since.

The total number of tunnels beneath the Old City remains unknown.

The tunnel had been excavated in secret starting in 1967 along the western wall of the Al Aqsa compound.

Every Israeli prime minister before Netanyahu refused to open an exit into the Muslim Quarter, knowing it would be read as a sovereignty claim.

Netanyahu authorised it in September 1996, hours after the end of Yom Kippur.

The opening triggered the worst violence since 1967. Riots spread across the West Bank and Gaza over four days.

The US Senate Intelligence Committee-cited figure from the subsequent period: 59 Palestinians and 16 Israelis killed.

Some sources including the Western Wall Tunnel's own institutional record cite up to 80 Palestinians killed.

The exact toll is documented differently across sources. No inquiry was conducted.

Inside the tunnel today the foundations of the Al Aqsa Mosque compound are visible, exposed by the excavation.

The tunnel is now a tourist attraction managed by the Elad Foundation, a private settler organisation, in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The Umayyad palaces are a complex of monumental Islamic structures built south of the Al Aqsa compound between 661 and 750 CE, the earliest period of Muslim rule in Jerusalem.

They are among the most significant early Islamic archaeological remains in the world.

UNESCO's 2021 State of Conservation report on the Old City of Jerusalem confirmed that excavations have impacted these palaces directly.

In August 2025 the Jerusalem Governorate issued a formal statement after leaked videos showed illegal excavation and demolition beneath Al Aqsa deliberately targeting Umayyad-period Islamic artefacts.

The Governorate stated these actions constitute "a direct assault on human heritage and Islamic civilisation" and called on UNESCO and the UN to intervene immediately.

The excavations in this area are horizontal rather than vertical.

Emek Shaveh, the Israeli archaeologists' NGO, and senior officials at the Israel Antiquities Authority have both described horizontal excavation as "bad archaeology" because it destroys historical layers rather than documenting them from the surface down.

Archaeology researcher Najeh Bkairat, cited by Middle East Eye in 2020, documented that the tunnel network has caused cracks in large buildings and affected the foundations of 16 Islamic monuments along the route.

The Al Marwani Prayer Hall inside Al Aqsa and cypress trees whose roots have been damaged are among the most affected structures.

In 1974 UNESCO suspended all aid to Israel over the excavations.

Israeli excavations were halted for several months.

Later that same year the historic Jawahiriya school, located west of the Al Aqsa compound, collapsed.

The connection between the excavations and the collapse was reported at the time. No independent investigation followed.

In the Silwan neighbourhood directly south, at least 32 houses have developed fissures and cracks due to tunnelling beneath them.

Some have been made uninhabitable.

Residents who reported damage to the Jerusalem Municipality were told to evacuate for repairs that never happened.

Documentation by Emek Shaveh, published March 2020.

The Old City of Jerusalem has been on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger since 1982.

It was placed there at Jordan's request, which holds custodianship over the Islamic and Christian holy sites.

The site remains on the danger list today.

UNESCO World Heritage Committee Decision 47 COM 7A.38, 2023, explicitly states the Committee "regrets the failure of the Israeli occupying authorities to cease the persistent reported excavations, tunnelling, works, projects, and other illegal practices in East Jerusalem."

Between 2011 and 2023 the World Heritage Committee passed 13 formal decisions on the Old City of Jerusalem.

Every one of them called on Israel to stop excavations and tunnelling.

Israel has formally rejected or ignored each one.

The Committee's own records document that Israel does not provide requested information on the state of excavations.

In 2017 the Committee stated that the excavations are "illegal under international law."

The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which Israel has ratified, prohibits excavations in occupied territory without consent of the occupied population.

That consent has never been sought or granted.

Emek Shaveh is an Israeli archaeologists NGO.

Its co-founder is Professor Rafi Greenberg of Tel Aviv University.

In 2026 their researcher Alon Arad stated: "Archaeology is being weaponised. It is not about history. It is really just about land and annexation."

These are Israeli archaeologists saying this. About their own government's programme.