The breach in the wall was created in 1898 by the Ottoman authorities in order to allow German emperor Wilhelm II to enter the city triumphally.

In medieval times the Arabs called this gate Bab Mihrab Dawud, or "Gate of David's Chamber or Sanctuary", on the belief that the room atop the Herodian tower stump represented the "private chamber" or "prayer room" of Prophet Dawud, which is specifically mentioned in the Quran (Surah 38.

[7][8] The breach was made by the Ottoman authorities ahead of Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany's visit to the city and allowed him and his retinue to comfortably enter Jerusalem riding on horses and in carriages.

Built to strengthen a strategically weak point in the Old City's defenses, the citadel that stands today was constructed during the 2nd century BCE and subsequently destroyed and rebuilt by, in succession, the Christian, Muslim, Mamluk, and Ottoman conquerors of Jerusalem.

The site contains important archaeological finds dating back 2,700 years, and is a venue for benefit events, craft shows, concerts, and sound-and-light performances.

Apart from serving the developing business district in the upper part of the Hinnom Valley, it was meant to be one of approximately one hundred such clock towers built throughout the Ottoman Empire in 1900 in celebration of the 25th year of rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II; but because of the high cost of 20,000 francs and the poverty of the city, the money was not raised in time, and the clock tower was not completed until 1908.

Seven such clock towers were erected in what are now Israel and the Palestinian Territories – in Safed, Acre, Haifa, Nazareth, Nablus, Jerusalem, and Jaffa.

[citation needed] The Turkish clock tower was knocked down by the British in 1922 – for aesthetic reasons,[13] although some believe it was rather meant as a measure to push forward the Westernisation of Palestine, starting with timekeeping.

[17] The British authorities attempted to recreate the historical aspect of the 16th-century city walls and gates and considered the clock tower to be an unaesthetic, disfiguring addition.

Outside the 1898 breach in the city wall at Jaffa Gate, on its southern side[18] and near the Bezalel Pavilion,[citation needed] was the so-called "Sultan's Sabil", built in 1900 or shortly before that.

Contemporaneous accounts of the Emperor's entry, and the Ottoman authorities' destruction of the wall adjacent to the Jaffa Gate, were written by David Yellin, a contributor to the Hebrew-language newspaper Ha-Melitz, in his regular column titled "Letters from Jerusalem", on a number of occasions (e.g., 3 Tamuz, 5658, Hebrew equivalent of June 23, 1898; "middle of Av, 5658" – roughly end of July, 1898; and 28 Elul, 5658 – September 15, 1898).

The Kaiser verbally opposed the Turkish initiative, to which the German ambassador to the Porte sent a soothing written reply to Berlin, reassuring his monarch that this was just the implementation of long-standing infrastructure plans.

These belong to two Ottoman-era notables, but a folk legend attributes them to the two architects whom Suleiman commissioned to construct the Old City walls.

[21] In 1917, British general Edmund Allenby entered the Old City through the Jaffa Gate,[22] giving a speech at the nearby Tower of David.

In 1944 the British demolished the row of houses erected against the outer face of the city wall leading down to Jaffa gate from the north, in an attempt to preserve Jerusalem's historic vistas.

[23] During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Israeli forces fought hard to connect the Jewish Quarter of the Old City with Israeli-held western Jerusalem by controlling the Jaffa Gate.

[citation needed] In 2010, the Israel Antiquities Authority completed a two-month restoration and cleaning of Jaffa Gate as part of a $4 million project begun in 2007 to renovate the length of the Old City walls.

[6] The clean-up included replacing broken stones, cleaning the walls of decades of car exhaust, and reattaching an elaborate Arabic inscription erected at the gate's original dedication in 1593.