Despite its name, the Tower of David—the citadel locater near the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City—has little connection to King David. Much of it was constructed during the Hasmonean and Herodian periods (i.e., the 1st and 2nd centuries BCE), although the oldest structures date as far back the 8th century BCE. Since the 1980s, it has also been home to a museum that is now undergoing renovations, meant to reflect the newest advances in conservation. Ruth Marks Eglash writes:

As with any construction project inside Jerusalem’s ancient walls, it is the secrets hidden below the ground, beneath more recent layers, that often present the most unpleasant surprises. The biggest surprise for archaeologists took place at the location of what will soon be a sparkling new entrance pavilion to the museum. . . . As machines began removing dirt from the area, which originally served as a Crusader moat, they realized that beneath the massive Jerusalem stones that form the walls of the Old City there were no solid foundations.

While this discovery temporarily halted the construction, with engineers brought in to secure the stone, the break gave archaeologists a chance to re-explore 500-year-old Ottoman architecture and building methods.

Although the site was excavated by British archaeologists nearly 100 years ago, . . . they relied on classic archaeological methods to date the structure. With updated technology, including the use of carbon dating . . . archaeologists will be able to create a more accurate timeline for Jerusalem.

This week, there have been numerous unconfirmed reports about the fate of Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Benny Avni writes:

On Thursday, Sky News Arabic reported that Mr. Qaani was rushed to a hospital after suffering a heart attack. He became [the Quds Force] commander in 2020, after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Suleimani. The unit oversees the Islamic Republic’s various Mideast proxies, as well as the exporting of the Iranian revolution to the region and beyond.

The Sky News report attempts to put to rest earlier claims that Mr. Qaani was killed at Beirut. It follows several reports asserting he has been arrested and interrogated at Tehran over suspicion that he, or a top lieutenant, leaked information to Israel. Five days ago, the Arabic-language al-Arabiya network reported that Mr. Qaani “is under surveillance and isolation, following the Israeli assassinations of prominent Iranian leaders.”

Iranians are desperately scrambling to plug possible leaks that gave Israel precise intelligence to conduct pinpoint strikes against Hizballah commanders. . . . “I find it hard to believe that Qaani was compromised,” an Iran watcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, Beni Sabti, tells the Sun. Perhaps one or more of [Qaani’s] top aides have been recruited by Israel, he says, adding that “psychological warfare” could well be stoking the rumor mill.

If so, prominent Iranians seem to be exacerbating the internal turmoil by alleging that the country’s security apparatus has been infiltrated.