GAZA, Feb 16: The Hamas vowed on Monday to exact revenge against Israel over the collapse of a stone embankment abutting Judaism's Western Wall and leading to the Al Aqsa Mosque.

"We warn the leadership of the enemy that the reaction of Palestinian resistance to the continued plans to destroy Al Aqsa Mosque will be beyond their imagination and will topple the situation on their heads," Hamas said in a statement.

Israeli engineers have not yet determined the cause of the collapse, during a rare snowstorm on Saturday, of part of an 800-year-old stone ramp leading to the mosque.

One theory being investigated was whether a small earthquake last week destabilized the Mameluke-era embankment that adjoins the Western Wall, or "Wailing Wall", an outer wall of the biblical Second Temple and one of Judaism's holiest sites.

But Hamas accused the Jewish state of trying to destabilize the Al Aqsa compound by carrying out construction in the vicinity. Over the past few years, parts of the ancient walls around the compound have begun to buckle and large cracks have appeared.

Israeli archaeologists have accused the Muslim Waqf, which oversees the shrine, of carrying out destructive and unsupervised building at the site, a charge it denies.

Israel is renovating the plaza in front of the Western Wall and has in the past carried out archaeological digs outside the mosque compound. But the Waqf and Hamas have accused it of digging under the compound itself, a charge never substantiated. -Reuters