Jerusalem - The Jerusalem mayor, Mr Ehud Olmert, ordered a halt yesterday to the building of a mosque close to the site of Temple Mount, police said.
The work, in the "stables of King Solomon," was started about a year ago, but the government turned a blind eye to it. Mr Olmert issued an order that the Waqf construction company stop its work, and ordered a prosecution against it for "violating the status quo by its provocations."
King Solomon's stables are just below the esplanade of the mosques, on which the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque are situated. The esplanade is Islam's third holiest site, but the mayor said the building of the mosque offended Jewish religious feeling because the esplanade was on the site of the mount where Solomon had built a temple.