U.S Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to visit the Israeli settlement in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, located in East Jerusalem, next week. Rubio will tour the City of David archaeological park, which is operated by the settler organization Elad.
The tunnel is 600 meters long and was excavated by the Israel Antiquities Authority on behalf of Elad, with approximately 50 million shekels in government funding. It begins at the southern edge of Wadi Hilweh in Silwan, runs beneath Palestinian homes, passes under the Old City walls, and ends beside the foundations of the Western Wall – itself part of the retaining structure of the Haram al-Sharif, and is only a few meters from al-Aqsa Mosque.
The excavation has exposed a Roman-era street from the first century CE, which Elad presents as the “Pilgrims Route,” used by Jewish pilgrims traveling to the Temple Mount.
Silwan Tunnel route
Peace Now: “Rubio’s visit is nothing less than American recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the most sensitive part of Jerusalem’s Holy Basin, contradicting Washington’s long-standing position since 1967. The Trump team is choosing to strengthen the grip of the settlement right in the heart of the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount area, instead of advancing a political arrangement. The tunnel, how it was dug and what stands behind its opening is a trampling of Jerusalem as a city sacred to all faiths and belonging to all its residents, just meters away from al-Aqsa Mosque.”
Political significance
The tunnel was excavated in one of the most sensitive areas of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, located beneath a Palestinian neighborhood and adjacent to the Haram al-Sharif. In recent years, successive Israeli governments have invested over one billion shekels in transforming Silwan into a tourist hub led by settlers and reshaping the public space of the Old City Basin, aiming to consolidate Israeli control while diminishing the Palestinian presence. The policy is designed to prevent Palestinian neighborhoods around the Old City from becoming part of a future Palestinian capital, thereby undermining prospects for a two-state agreement.
Archaeology and controversy
Elad and the Israel Antiquities Authority present the excavation as the uncovering of the “Pilgrim’s Route,” reinforcing a national-religious narrative that frames the site as a Jewish heritage destination with political overtones. As Jerusalem’s then-mayor Nir Barkat once put it: “Everyone who walks through this tunnel knows exactly who is the master of this city.”
Yet the excavation methods have been criticized within Israel’s archaeological community. Internal Antiquities Authority documents, revealed by the NGO Emek Shaveh, show senior archaeologists distancing themselves from the project, labeling it “bad archaeology” and warning of technical and safety failures. The Roman Street itself had already been known to scholars since early 20th-century excavations in Silwan. The current excavation focused on exposing the street for visitors, a choice that required removing thousands of tons of soil and dismantling some remains to reveal others. The tunnel excavations have stoked deep fears among Palestinians and reinforced suspicions of Israeli attempts to assert control over the al-Aqsa compound “from below,” through tunnels. The symbolism is heightened by the fact that the route re-creates the path of Jewish pilgrims to the Temple, on the very ground now occupied by Islam’s holiest sites in Jerusalem. The section that Rubio is set to inaugurate is located just meters from the foundations of al-Aqsa and the remnants of the Umayyad palaces, which date back to the 7th century CE during the Early Islamic period.
A history of flashpoints
Tunnel excavations in Silwan and around the Haram al-Sharif have repeatedly triggered political crises.
- In September 1996, soon after Benjamin Netanyahu first became prime minister, the opening of an exit from the Western Wall tunnels near Haram al-Sharif sparked the “Tunnel Intifada,” in which 15 Israeli soldiers and around 70 Palestinians were killed.
- In 2009, during Netanyahu’s second term, he planned to inaugurate a smaller “drainage channel” tunnel under Silwan. The Obama administration intervened, making clear the move was unacceptable, and the event was quietly cancelled.
- In 2019, during Donald Trump’s presidency, US ambassador David Friedman attended the opening of another section of the Silwan tunnel.
Rubio’s upcoming visit represents the highest-level American endorsement of settler-led initiatives in one of the city’s most disputed areas.
