TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: "Fighting words," heard by a Toronto Star reporter and already familiar to PaleoJudaica readers.

For the most part, the visit proceeded calmly, but fireworks awaited when our group emerged into the sunshine.

No sooner had we replaced our footwear than we were taken in hand by the guide from the Israeli Tourism Ministry, one Gila Traybovitch.

She led her charges east of the Al-Aqsa Mosque to a gaping cavity in the plaza's surface, an area that legend says marked the location of King Solomon's stables and is now the site of extensive digging and construction work carried out by the Waqf despite widespread opposition among Israelis.

While the two Muslim guides protested, Traybovitch proceeded to denounce the Waqf project, charging it has been undertaken without expert archeological guidance and in violation of Israeli law.

"There's a whole world underneath us," she stormed. "This was done absolutely without supervision."

She said debris trucked out of the site by the Waqf and cast away as waste has yielded many precious artifacts, including official seals from the era of the First Jewish Temple.

"It really hurts to see such terrible damage done."

By this time, the Muslim guides had had enough.

"Time is over – 10:30," shouted Mohamed Abdochtish, waving at the assembled journalists to leave.

Traybovitch continued to speak out against what she regards as the intentional desecration of Judaism's holiest site, but Abdochtish begged to differ.

"This is the holy area of Islam," he told a reporter in his imperfect English, as the group hurriedly departed. "No Jewish (people) and nobody else have anything holy here. Here, Muslim and nothing else."

No blood was shed, but those sounded like fighting words.