Israeli police searching homes in Jerusalem violence probe stumble upon a 2,000-year-old burial cave

Border Police officers hunting suspects in a deadly feud between rival Arab families in Silwan, east Jerusalem, made an extraordinary find beneath one of the searched buildings: a rock-cut burial cave dating to the Second Temple period, between 516 BCE and 70 CE. The Israel Antiquities Authority confirmed the date after specialists were rushed to the scene, with additional archaeological artefacts also recovered from inside the chamber. Police and Border Police are now securing the compound to allow excavation to continue undisturbed.

The search was triggered by a weekend of violence in Silwan in which one person died and two others were wounded by police gunfire after attacking officers with blades, blunt instruments and Molotov cocktails.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir accused left-wing media of spending the night reporting 'three murdered' and 'bodies piling up at the police station' when two of the dead were shot by officers responding to active threats.

Rock-cut caves served as the standard form of family burial in Jerusalem throughout the Second Temple period — archaeologists say the discovery of one beneath a Silwan building is far less remarkable than it appears, given that the ridge was once the city's oldest centre.