'Dig improving Temple Mount stability'The same story is covered by Ynetnew: "PR tour brings foreign journalists to Western Wall tunnels."
By ABE SELIG (Jerusalem Post)
Despite recent accusations to the contrary, the chief site engineer for the Western Wall tunnels declared on Thursday that Israeli archeological excavations were not being done under the Temple Mount, were in no way detrimental to the structural stability of the mount or its surroundings, and were actually improving such stability "tenfold."
"There's been a lot of talk about instability [based on ongoing archeological excavations in the area], and let me reassure you, we have improved the structural stability here tenfold over the last few years and have actually strengthened areas where there was danger of further collapse," the chief engineer, Ofer Cohen, said during a Government Press Office-sponsored tour of the tunnels on Thursday afternoon.
Standing in a section of the tunnels known as the "Hall of Ages" - so named because the archeological and subsequent reinforcement work there spans from the First Temple period until today - Cohen and the tour's participants were dwarfed by a series of huge steel beams that had been set up to prevent the walls from caving in.
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There's also this Arutz Sheva news brief:
Israel Plans Major Excavation at Western Wall
Reported: 11:00 AM - Oct/23/09
(IsraelNN.com) Israel is planning a major archaeological dig under the Western Wall (Kotel) plaza, opposite the Temple Mount, officials announced Thursday. The excavations will create an archaeological park directly underneath the area where worshippers currently stand while praying at the Kotel.
The current prayer area will remain open, supported by pillars, while a new area will be added underneath, at the level at which worshippers at the ancient Temple stood in the past.