JERUSALEM, Feb 6: Under heavy police guard, Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday began a dig near the Al Aqsa mosque amid protests and threats from Palestinians and Muslim governments.

Palestinians, who fear Israel will damage the site, have warned the work would inflame tensions. Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces in several areas of Jerusalem and the West Bank. Palestinian leaders condemned the project.

''The continued Israeli aggression on Al Aqsa mosque and Jerusalem require all Palestinians to unite and remember that our battle is with the occupation,'' said Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. He spoke as he departed for Saudi Arabia for reconciliation talks with President Mahmoud Abbas.

''What is happening is an aggression,'' Mufti Mohammed Hussein, the top religious authority in Jerusalem, told the Gaza Strip radio station of the Hamas party. “We call on the Palestinian people to unite and unify the efforts to protect Jerusalem.”

The dig is just outside the most contentious religious site in the Holy Land _ the hilltop compound in Jerusalem’s Old City that is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Haram Sharif. The site has often seen Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the past. Raed Salah, a fiery leader of the Islamic Movement inside Israel, called on his followers to come from all over the country to protect the site.

''The danger in Jerusalem has increased. It is high time for the intifada of the Islamic people,'' Salah told reporters near the holy site.—Agencies