Walls of Jerusalem

The walls that ring the Old City of Jerusalem enclose an area of about one square kilometre that holds sites sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Their line is ancient, but the stones you see today are mostly Ottoman. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent ordered the ruined fortifications rebuilt, partly on older foundations, and the work was carried out between about 1537 and 1541. An Arabic inscription records his decree in grand terms. The circuit runs for about 4 km, with an average height of 12 m and walls about 2.5 m thick, and 34 towers punctuate it.

Jerusalem had been walled long before Suleiman. Remains from the Bronze Age survive on the south-eastern hill, and Josephus described three successive walls of the Second Temple period, the last begun by Herod Agrippa shortly before the Roman siege of 70 CE destroyed almost everything. The city was later rewalled under Roman rule and again by the empress Eudocia in the 5th century. The Fatimids rebuilt the walls after an earthquake in 1033, and the Crusaders, Saladin and his successors fought over them. In 1219 the Ayyubid ruler al-Mu'azzam Isa pulled them down to keep them from the Crusaders, and the city then stood largely unwalled for three centuries. At the north-west corner, archaeologists have found traces of Tancred's Tower, the stronghold where Crusader troops broke through in 1099.

The gates are the best way to read the walls. Suleiman gave the city seven: the Damascus Gate; Herod's Gate; the Lions' Gate on the east; the Golden Gate, which he sealed again soon after; the Dung Gate; Zion Gate; and the Jaffa Gate on the west. The New Gate was added in 1887. Until then, the gates were closed at sunset. In 1898 a breach was cut beside the Jaffa Gate so that the German emperor Wilhelm II could ride in, and it is still there.

The walls' modern history reflects the city's contested status. After the 1948 war the Old City was under Jordanian control. Israel took it, with the rest of East Jerusalem, in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it, but the United Nations Security Council declared the annexation null and void, and most of the international community regards East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory. The Old City and its walls were placed on the World Heritage List in 1981 at Jordan's proposal.

Getting there

The walls stand in the centre of Jerusalem; the Jaffa Gate and the Damascus Gate are the main entrances for visitors. The Red Line of the Jerusalem Light Rail runs past the Old City between the City Hall and Damascus Gate stops. The high-speed railway from Jerusalem–Yitzhak Navon station connects the city with Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport (TLV), about 42 km away by straight line.