//
Photo: Yaakov Shoham, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
on the east wall of the Temple Mount/Haram esh-Sharif. According to Jewish tradition the Messiah will arrive in the Temple via this gate, and according to Christian tradition Jesus entered through this gate on Palm Sunday. Closed by the Muslims in 810, reopened in 1102 by the Crusaders, it was walled up by Saladin after regaining Jerusalem in 1187. Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilt it together with the city walls, but walled it up in 1541, and it stayed that way until today.
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.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
(Arabic: Qubbat Al-Sakhra, Hebrew: Kippat HaSela), located in the middle of the sanctuary opposite of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is probably the most dazzling and well-known landmark of Jerusalem, with its golden dome and octagonal blue walls adorned with calligraphy of Quranic verses. The Dome was built between 687-691 by the ninth Omayyad caliph, Abd al-Malik, atop the ruins of the Jewish Second Temple. The Dome is probably the most spectacular building in the Old City, thanks to a renovation in which dazzling gold donated by the King of Jordan in 1993 was layered over the bronze. Despite common conceptions, the Dome is not a mosque, but a shrine which protects beneath its high ceiling a large piece of rock sacred to Muslims, Jews and Christians. The rock is variously believed to be the "Foundation Stone" from which the world was created, where Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son (Isaac or Ishmael, depending on the tradition), where Mohammad left the Earth on his Night Journey (a small indentation was reportedly left by his foot), and the site of Solomon and Herod's Temples.
El-Marwani Mosque
This Crusader-era church was built between 1131 and 1138 to replace a Byzantine church. It is traditionally believed to be the spot where Anne and Joachim, the parents of the Virgin Mary, lived. the church fell into ruins until it was donated to France by the Ottomans in 1856. Outside the church are the extensive remains of curative baths as well as the ruins of a Roman temple dedicated to the god of medicine. It is widely believed that this site is the Pool of Bethesda where, according to the Gospel of John (5:1-15), Christ cured a paralysed man.
The Church of Condemnation
Owned by the Franciscans, this site is traditionally held to be where Christ was flogged by Roman soldiers prior to his crucifixion. Opposite the courtyard is the Chapel of the Condemnation, built on the site popularly identified with the trial of Christ before Pontius Pilate.
The point from where Mohammad is believed to have ascended to heaven. This association has made the building the third-holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. Construction of the mosque began less than 20 years after the completion of the Dome of the Rock. Al-Aqsa has undergone many changes since its original construction. When the Crusaders captured Jerusalem in the 11th century, al-Aqsa became the headquarters of the Templars. The mosque's design pales in comparison to the Dome of the Rock and is permanently off-limits to non-Muslim visitors.