Israel has advanced a plan to extend a high-speed rail line in Tel Aviv to include a station at the Aqsa Mosque’s Western Wall in Occupied Jerusalem according to Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
Israeli transportation minister Yisrael Katz has ordered planning and feasibility studies for the project a ministry spokeswoman announced.
Katz said last November that he wanted to extend a high-speed rail line currently being built between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to include a Western Wall station.
According to the new train plan a tunnel would be dug up to 80 meters (262 feet) deep to connect the central station at the entrance to Jerusalem to the Western Wall station.
The cost of the project has been estimated at some seven billion shekels according to the ministry spokeswoman.
Two options are being studied with one seeing the train arrive outside of the Old City near al-Maghariba Gate (Dung Gate) close to the Western Wall.
The other calls for the station to be built inside the Old City.
The Aqsa Mosque’s Western Wall is located in the Old City in east Jerusalem occupied by Israel in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognized by the international community.
