I am of two minds about this. On the one hand, I don't want to make a mountain out of a mole-hole. The hole was only three cubic feet in size. It probably didn't hide any significant archaeological treasures. The Waqf says it was probably a hole in a water conduit. Could be. And it is entirely possible that the best way to maintain the area's structural integrity was to fill it in with concrete.
On the other hand, we don't know what was in the hole. There may have been something interesting. Artifacts do show up in such places. And we don't get a chance to see inside the Temple Mount platform very often.
It would have been little trouble to bring in archaeologists to have a look. Now we will never know.
At minimum, the story has bad optics. The Waqf gave itself some easily avoided bad publicity.
Background here.
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