Gaza, also called Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip. Before the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, it was the largest city in the State of Palestine, with a population of 590,481 in 2017.
The Temple Mount, also known as Haram al-Sharif, al-Aqsa Mosque compound, or simply al-Aqsa, and sometimes as Jerusalem's holyesplanade, is a hill in the Old City of Jerusalem that has been venerated as a holy site in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for thousands of years.
The Aqsa Mosque, also known as the Qibli Mosque or Qibli Chapel, is the main congregational mosque or prayer hall in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. In some sources the building is also named al-Masjid al-Aqṣā, but this name primarily applies to the whole compound in which the building sits, which is itself also known as "Al-Aqsa Mosque". The wider compound is known as Al-Aqsa or Al-Aqsa mosque compound, also known as al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf.
The Golden Gate or Gate of Mercy is the only eastern gate of the Temple Mount, and one of only two Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem that used to offer access into the city from the East side.
The Temple Mount, a holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem, also known as the al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf or Al-Aqsa, contains twelve gates. One of the gates, Bab as-Sarai, is currently closed to the public but was open under Ottoman rule. There are also six other sealed gates. This does not include the Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem which circumscribe the external walls except on the east side.
Ma'aman Allah (Mamilla) Cemetery is a historic Muslim cemetery in West Jerusalem that dates back to the Crusades, and lies just to the west of the north-west corner of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, near the New Gate. The cemetery, at the center of which lies the Mamilla Pool, contains the remains of figures from the early Islamic period, several Sufi shrines and Mamluk-era tombs. The cemetery grounds also contain the bodies of thousands of Christians killed in the pre-Islamic era, as well as several tombs from the time of the Crusades.
A number of archaeological excavations at the Temple Mount—a celebrated and contentious religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem—have taken place over the last 150 years. Excavations in the area represent one of the more sensitive areas of all archaeological excavations in Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem Waqf and Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs Department, also known as the Jerusalem Waqf, the Jordanian Waqf or simply the Waqf, is the Jordanian-appointed organization responsible for controlling and managing the current Islamic edifices on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, known to Muslims as Al-Aqsa, which includes the Dome of the Rock. The Jerusalem Waqf is guided by a council composed of 18 members and headed by a director, all appointed by Jordan. The current director of the Waqf, since 2005, is Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib.
The al-Buraq Mosque is a subterranean musalla next to the Western Wall, near the southwest corner of the Masjid al-Aqsa compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. This mosque is called al-Buraq Mosque because of a ring that is nailed to its wall where Muslims believe Muhammad tied the Buraq that carried him from the al-Haram Mosque to the al-Aqsa Mosque during the Night Journey.
In 2009, clashes between Muslim Palestinians and Israeli police erupted on September 27, 2009, and continued to late October. Violence spread through East Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank, and included throwing of Molotov cocktails and stones at Israeli security forces and civilians. Israeli police responded with arrests of rioters and sporadic age-based restriction of access to the Temple Mount. Several dozen rioters, police and Israeli civilians have been injured.
Bab Al-Asbat Minaret, Minaret of the Tribes, is a minaret in Jerusalem. The other name is the Minaret of Salahiyah which refers to the Salahiyah School close to it. It is one of the four minarets of Al-Aqsa, and is situated along the north wall.
The Islamization of Jerusalem refers to the process through which Jerusalem and its Old City acquired an Islamic character and, eventually, a significant Muslim presence. The foundation for Jerusalem's Islamization was laid by the Muslim conquest of the Levant, and began shortly after the city was besieged and captured in 638 CE by the Rashidun Caliphate under Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second Rashidun caliph. The second wave of Islamization occurred after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Christian state that was established after the First Crusade, at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. The eventual fall of the Crusader states by 1291 led to a period of almost-uninterrupted Muslim rule that lasted for seven centuries, and a dominant Islamic culture was consolidated in the region during the Ayyubid, Mamluk and early Ottoman periods. Beginning in the late Ottoman era, Jerusalem’s demographics turned increasingly multicultural, and regained a Jewish-majority character during the late-19th and early-20th centuries that had not been seen since the Roman period, which largely ended the Jewish presence in the region.
Bāb Ḥuṭṭa is a neighborhood in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem to the north of Al-Aqsa Compound. The name literally means "Forgiveness Gate", referring to the Remission Gate of the Haram compound, connected by Bāb Ḥuṭṭa Street.
The Damascus Gate is one of the main Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is located in the wall on the city's northwest side and connects to a highway leading out to Nablus, which in the Hebrew Bible was called Shechem or Sichem, and from there, in times past, to the capital of Syria, Damascus; as such, its modern English name is the Damascus Gate, and its modern Hebrew name is Sha'ar Shkhem, meaning Shechem Gate, or in modern terms Nablus Gate. Of its historic Arabic names, Bāb al-Naṣr means "gate of victory", and the current one, Bāb al-ʿĀmūd, means "gate of the column". The latter, in use continuously since at least as early as the 10th century, preserves the memory of a Roman column towering over the square behind the gate and dating to the 2nd century AD.
The Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem has four minarets in total: three on the western flank and one on the northern flank.
The Chain Gate is one of the gates to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was previously known as David's Gate. As it was named in the early Islamic period Bāb Daud which means David's Gate. It was also known as Bāb al-Maḥkama, named after the nearby Tankiziyya.
The history of Jerusalem during the Early Muslim period covers the period between the capture of the city from the Byzantines by the Arab Muslim armies of the nascent Caliphate in 637–638 CE, and its conquest by the European Catholic armies of the First Crusade in 1099. Throughout this period, Jerusalem remained a largely Christian city with smaller Muslim and Jewish communities. It was successively part of several Muslim states, beginning with the Rashidun caliphs of Medina, the Umayyads of Syria, the Abbasids of Baghdad and their nominal Turkish vassals in Egypt, and the Fatimid caliphs of Cairo, who struggled over it with the Turkic Seljuks and different other regional powers, only to finally lose it to the Crusaders.
The Bab al-Asbat Cemetery, the al-Asbat Cemetery, also known as the al-Yusufiyya Cemetery, is an Islamic cemetery in Jerusalem, whose construction dates back to the era of the Ayyubid state.
On 15 April 2022, clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli Security Forces on the Al-Aqsa Compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. According to the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, the clashes began when Palestinians threw stones, firecrackers, and other heavy objects at Israeli police officers. The policemen used tear gas shells, stun grenades and police batons against the Palestinians. Some Palestinians afterwards barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque and proceeded to throw stones at the officers. In response, police raided the mosque, arresting those who had barricaded themselves inside. In addition, some damage was done to the mosque's structure.
Al-Aqsa or al-Masjid al-Aqṣā is the compound of Islamic religious buildings that sit atop the Temple Mount, also known as the Haram al-Sharif, in the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Dome of the Rock, many mosques and prayer halls, madrasas, zawiyas, khalwas and other domes and religious structures, as well as the four encircling minarets. It is considered the third holiest site in Islam. The compound's main congregational mosque or prayer hall is variously known as Al-Aqsa Mosque, Qibli Mosque or al-Jāmiʿ al-Aqṣā, while in some sources it is also known as al-Masjid al-Aqṣā; the wider compound is sometimes known as Al-Aqsa mosque compound in order to avoid confusion.
