JERUSALEM, Oct 14 (AFP) - Israel will not restrict the entrance of worshippers to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan despite concerns part of the structure could collapse, security sources said Thursday.
Public radio reported that Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had originally envisaged limiting to 50,000 the number of worshipppers allowed on the compound.
More than 100,000 Muslims usually pray there every Friday during Ramadan, which begins this week.
Earlier Thursday police chief Moshe Karadi and colleague Ilan Franco, who oversees the Jerusalem district visited, the compound to inspect ongoing retaining works in an underground prayer room and planned security measures, police spokesman Gil Kleiman told AFP.
The head of the mosque, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, said "two or three galleries (in the prayer room) would be off-limits to the worshippers."
He said that up 4,000 people could gather in the room -- Al-Musalla Al-Marawani in Arabic -- without any danger of collapse.
The director of the Muslim Wafq, or religious endowment, said the prayer room was in no danger of caving in.
Adnan Husseini, head of the body that runs the mosque, also accused Israel of being motivated by "political reasons" to reduce the number of Palestinians praying at the compound.
The mosque compound, which is called Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) by Muslims, shelters the Dome of the Rock (Omar Mosque) and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The site is also revered by Jews as it was once the site of the Jewish temple, the holiest shrine in Judaism, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.