First anniversary of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel

7 October 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  14 minutes

© Ecrusized/Rr016/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Ecrusized/Rr016/cc-by-sa-4.0

On 7 October 2023, the paramilitary wings of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, and the DFLP launched a series of coordinated armed incursions into the Gaza envelope of neighboring Israeli territory, the first invasion of Israel since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. This incursion fell on the day of Simchat Torah, right after the festival of Sukkot, a Sabbath day. The attacks initiated the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, almost exactly 50 years after Operation Badr and the greater Yom Kippur War of 6 October 1973. Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups named the attacks Operation Al-Aqsa Flood (or Deluge), while in Israel they are referred to as Black Saturday or the Simchat Torah Massacre and internationally as the 7 October attack.   read more…

French Hill in East Jerusalem

12 June 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  4 minutes

© Hagai Agmon-Snir/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Hagai Agmon-Snir/cc-by-sa-4.0

French Hill, is an Israeli settlement in northern East Jerusalem. It is located on territory that has been occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967 and later unilaterally annexed by Israel under the Jerusalem Law, in a move internationally condemned as illegal, “null and void” under international law, in 1980. The international community considers Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, such as French Hill, illegal under international law, which the Israeli government disputes.   read more…

Rockefeller Archeological Museum in East Jerusalem

27 October 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  6 minutes

© McKaby/cc-by-sa-4.0

© McKaby/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Rockefeller Archeological Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum (“PAM”; 1938–1967), is an archaeology museum located in East Jerusalem, next to Herod’s Gate, that houses a large collection of artifacts unearthed in the excavations conducted in the region of Palestine, mainly in the 1920s and 1930s, under the British authorities.   read more…

Arab Souk in the Old City of Jerusalem

14 September 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon appétit, Shopping, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  3 minutes

© Radoslaw Botev/cc-by-3.0-pl

© Radoslaw Botev/cc-by-3.0-pl

The Arab Souk Couk, also known as the Arab Souq Couq, Arabic Market of Wondrous Expectations or Suq El-Bazar, is a large bazaar occupying approximately 100 acres (400,000 m²) of area in the Old City of Jerusalem. About 800 merchants operate a variety of businesses in closely-packed shop stalls along a network of alleyways primarily in the Muslim Quarter and the Christian Quarter, located in the northern part of the Old City. The New York Times described the market in a 1982 publishing as “an explosion of colour, movement and smell.”   read more…

Gethsemane in East Jerusalem

7 April 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  < 1 minute

Garden of Gethsemane © Tango7174/cc-by-sa-4.0

Garden of Gethsemane © Tango7174/cc-by-sa-4.0

Gethsemane is a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem where, according to the four Gospels of the New Testament, Jesus underwent the agony in the garden and was arrested before his crucifixion. It is a place of great resonance in Christianity. There are several small olive groves in church property, all adjacent to each other and identified with biblical Gethsemane.   read more…

Paulus-Haus in East Jerusalem

7 December 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  9 minutes

© DVHL-PR1/cc-by-sa-4.0

© DVHL-PR1/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Paulus-Haus is a pilgrim hospice in Jerusalem under the care of the German Association of the Holy Land. It is situated on the Nablus Road in East Jerusalem, directly opposite the Damascus Gate of the Old City. The monumental architecture is reminiscent of the crusader castles. The Schmidt’s Girls College is a German international school for Christian and Muslim girls. It was founded in 1885 and provides primary and secondary education to approximately 500 pupils.   read more…

Towns and villages depopulated during the 1947–1949 Palestine war

29 November 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  2 minutes

Towns and villages depopulated during the 1947–1949 Palestine war © Wiki Commons

Towns and villages depopulated during the 1947–1949 Palestine war © Wiki Commons

During the 1947–1949 Palestine war around 400 Arab towns and villages were depopulated, with a majority being entirely destroyed and left uninhabitable (Nakba). Today these locations are in Israel; many of the locations were repopulated by Jewish immigrants, with their place names replaced with new Hebrew place names.   read more…

Haram esh-Sharif or Temple Mount in East Jerusalem

3 September 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  10 minutes

© Andrew Shiva/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Andrew Shiva/cc-by-sa-4.0

Known to Muslims as the Haram esh-Sharif (“the Noble Sanctuary”, or “the Noble Sanctuary of Jerusalem”) and the Al Aqsa Compound, and to Jews as Temple Mount (“Mount of the House [of God, i.e. the Temple in Jerusalem]”), is a hill in the UNESCO World Heritage Site Old City of Jerusalem that for thousands of years has been venerated as a holy site in Christianity, Islam and Islam, and Judaism alike.   read more…

Church of the Holy Sepulchre in East Jerusalem

2 April 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  16 minutes

Calvary/Golgotha © Gerd Eichmann/cc-by-sa-4.0

Calvary/Golgotha © Gerd Eichmann/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of East Jerusalem. It contains, according to traditions dating back to the fourth century, the two holiest sites in Christianity: the site where Jesus was crucified, at a place known as Calvary or Golgotha, and Jesus’s empty tomb, where he was buried and resurrected. The tomb is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicula. The Status Quo, an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site. Within the church proper are the last four (or, by some definitions, five) stations of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the fourth century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis (‘Resurrection’). Today, the wider complex around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre also serves as the headquarters of the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, while control of the church itself is shared among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years, and some for much longer. The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenian Apostolic, and to a lesser degree the Coptic Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox.   read more…

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