The years of archaeological excavations Israel has conducted at the Temple Mount have yielded no proof that the Temple ever existed in Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Monday evening in an interview to Al Jazeera.
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When asked about current tensions in Jerusalem, Shtayyeh said that Jerusalem was at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
"Since 1967 and the occupation of the West Bank, Israel has carried out a series of excavations underneath Al-Aqsa Mosque which haven't proved any connection whatsoever to the hall [Temple] or anything similar," Shtayyeh claimed.
Shtayyeh went on to tell the interviewer that since 1967, Israel has been implementing a plan known as 'Jerusalem 2020,' which he claimed is designed to reduce the Palestinian population in the capital to some 19%.
"This has failed completely," he said. "Palestinians make up 40% of the population of Jerusalem. When it comes to Al-Aqsa, Israel seriously wants to divide the compound in terms of space and schedules."
When asked if he thought that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted an escalation in violence as a way of torpedoing the nascent Bennett-Lapid unity government, Shtayyeh said, "The US intervened on the Sheikh Jarrah matter and to keep the status quo in place. Jordan, Qatar, and other Arab states want the Palestinian arena in general and Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular to stay calm. The war in Gaza was a personal matter for Netanyahu and now he is linking Jerusalem to his personal interests because he wants to stay in power."
"Any escalation in is Netanyahu's interest," Shtayyeh said, adding that as far as the Palestinians were concerned, it made no difference whether Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett, or anyone else served as prime minister of Israel, because "without the establishment of a Palestinian state, the conflict will continue."
Shtayyeh spoke to Al Jazeera while on a visit to Qatar and after a meeting with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and said that the two had discussed Qatari aid to the Palestinians and ways of solidifying the restored calm in the Gaza Strip.
"The world is without question showing unprecedented support for the Palestinians. In a meeting, the director of Facebook told me that the hashtag 'Sheikh Jarrah' had been shared 76 million times," he said.
Shtayyeh also said that if Israel would allow Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem to participate in PA legislative elections, PA President Mahmoud Abbas would set a new date for them to be held. Shtayyeh said that the PA was pouring $140 million into the Gaza Strip each month, and had renewed the payment of salaries of 25,000 government workers in Gaza.
When asked about reconciliation attempts in Cairo, Shtayyeh said he hoped the rift between Fatah and Hamas would come to an end.
"The Palestinians need to work together and not decide on a war or on peace separately," he declared.
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