Jerusalem - A new Israeli construction project in Jerusalem has sparked a storm of controversy, with Muslim leaders warning of harm to Islamic holy places and calling for a revival of the uprising against Israel.

The row centres around Israel's building of a new walkway leading up to the Old City's disputed Temple Mount/ Harem al-Sharif compound, holy to both Jews and Muslims and a perennial Jerusalem flashpoint.

The compound is perhaps the most volatile site in an already volatile region. It houses the al-Aqsa mosque, the third most holy site in Islam, and Muslims believe it marks the spot from where the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.

For Jews, it is the holiest site in Judaism, as it contains the archaeological remnants of their biblical temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, and abuts the Western (Wailing) Wall, the only surviving structure pertaining to the temple.

Although Israel claims sovereignty over the site, administration of the holy places in the compound is in the hands of the Muslim Waqf religious trust, which zealously guards against any encroachment.

Claims that Israel is attempting to undermine the foundations of the compound's al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques are not new and have been sounded, in various forms, virtually since Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem area in the 1967 Middle East War.

Islamic leaders are unappeased by Israel's assertion that the Muslim holy sites would not be harmed by the current work being undertaken to prepare for the construction of a new walkway from the Western Wall plaza to the compound.

The walkway is to replace an old wooden structure built after the previous ramp collapsed in 2004 due to rain, snow and a minor earthquake.

Israel says it is not building the new walkway in the compound but outside it, and argues it is necessary to provide safe access to it. It had declared the previous structure a 'safety hazard.'

'There is no connection to the Temple Mount,' Dr Gideon Avni, an archaeologist working on the project, said of the excavations.

'The danger in Jerusalem has increased. It is high time for the Intifada (uprising) of the Islamic people,' said Raed Salah, head of Israel's Islamic Movement northern faction, who on Wednesday was arrested as he tried to force his way through a security gate leading to the Western Wall Plaza.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, and President Mahmoud Abbas, currently in Saudi Arabia for talks on forming a unity government, also lent their voices to the protests.

Abbas called for the Islamic world to intervene to stop the work, and Haniya, whose Hamas movement has been engaged in bloody clashes with Abbas' Fatah organization for months, told Palestinians to remember that their battle was with the 'Israeli occupation.'

The Jerusalem Post daily, in an editorial Wednesday, accused Palestinian leaders of 'exploiting the issue for political purposes to redirect hostility against Israel in the midst of a bloody conflict.'

'Each time the Palestinians engage in internal wars, our leaders have a special talent for uniting them against us,' Roni Shaked of the Yediot Achronot daily countered.

Jordan's King Abdullah II lodged an official complaint with the Israeli government and demanded the work be stopped.

Even the US State Department joined in the fray, with spokesman Sean McCormack telling reporters that 'we urge all parties to exercise great care when deciding whether and how to engage in any activity near sensitive religious sites.'

Israeli criticism of the excavations focuses less on any alleged harm to Muslim holy sites, but more on whether the work was coordinated with the Waqf.

'All this commotion could have been avoided,' Yediot's Shaked wrote in an article entitled 'Playng with fire.'

'The bulldozers started without Israel having taken the position of the Waqf into consideration,' he said.