BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- The Head of the Islamic endowment, or Waqf, in Jerusalem Azzam At-Tamimi denied Israeli media reports on Sunday that Jordan is preparing to renovate the King Hussein palace in Jerusalem.
“The department of the Islamic endowment was not designated to renovate the palace but only was instructed to install a fence around the land of the royal palace, upon the request and the insistence of those near the land," At-Tamimi told Ma’an.
He confirmed that a fence had been installed 12 days ago around more than forty seven dunams of land.
However, Palestinian witnesses claim that Israeli authorities removed the fence on Sunday, apparently under the pretext that the land belongs to an Israeli environmental authority.
The late Jordanian King Hussein commissioned the palace in the 1960s, when the West Bank was under Jordanian control.
The monarch abandoned work on the palace when Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.
