Ramadan: Prayer on the third Friday of Ramadan

11:00 Second Entrance to the Mosque after the Lions' Gate

The main road between the Lions' Gate and the Via Dolorosa – on the right there is a public toilet for women.

I begin the report with two pictures that show the normalization of the Occupation. The policeman is talking on the phone behind the fence that separates him from thousands of devout people who are climbing the mountain to go to pray. And the biggest question is what toilets can 

serve the 300,000 people who have come to pray. Then we discovered, for example, that the nuns' church allows women to come in to go to the toilet and to wash their faces and feet at the faucet in the courtyard. And in another church the tourists were required to pay a shekel for using the toilets.

The entrances to the Temple Mount have been decorated, and we saw men and boys from the organization of the Scouts who volunteered to help organize the Mount during the month of the Ramadan – one more good deed to add to the list of Scouts' good deeds.

The atmosphere is very matter of fact; people flow through all the entrances to the Mount and between the entrances there is practically no traffic.

The police estimated that 200,000 people came to pray and the Waqf estimated that there were 300,000. What made me wonder was the fact that last year a larger number registered and there were fewer permits – because of the heat? Or because when there is a choice, there is less urgency?

Apart from the decorations, there were sprinklers that dampened the women lightly when they entered the principal gate, the Lions' Gate, and in other places, young people sprinkled passers-by with water from bottles – these, with a very light breeze that blew, eased the heat somewhat (31 degrees Celsius in the shade).

There were not many foreigners observing or taking part in this human caravan and my feeling was that it would have been better for me not to have pushed myself into this public space to which I do not belong.