A sad and fast Friday,

Few men and women praying, a very short prayer, everything was conducted gloomily and quickly.

We arrived at about 11.40, which in a normal year is already the time to gather on the steps of the Damascus Gate. Very few people were present in the area and only two sales stalls were open.

At 12:00, mainly young men began running up the stairs in large numbers for about ten minutes. There were no elderly people, no worshippers in white clothes or clothes appropriate for the day of prayer, almost no women, and no children at all.

Completely different from all the Fridays we have known. The prayer was very short and by 12:45, worshippers had already returned quickly, and the impression remains that this year it was a particularly small congregation.