Gate sights in Jerusalem
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Damascus Gate
The scene in front of the Damascus Gate is a microcosm of the Palestinian world - vendors heave goods in and out of the Old City, families picnic on the steps and Israeli soldiers tap their truncheons. You'll also spot elderly women from the villages trying to sell herbs and produce; most of them wear intricately embroidered dresses that are a part of their dowry and identity.
The gate itself dates in its present form from the time of Süleyman the Magnificent (who oversaw the gate's construction between 1537 and 1542), although there had been a gate here long before the arrival of the Turks. This was the main entrance to the city as early as the time of Agrippas, who…
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Jaffa Gate
The actual gate is the small block through which the doglegged pedestrian tunnel passes (the dogleg was to slow down any charging enemy forces - you'll find the same thing at the Damascus and Zion Gates); the breach in the wall through which the road now passes was only made in 1898 in order to permit the visiting Kaiser Wilhelm II and his party to ride with full pomp into the city.
Just inside the gate, on the left as you enter, are two graves said to be those of Süleyman's architects, beheaded for leaving the Mt Zion monastery outside the walls. The Arabic name for the gate is Bab al-Khalil (Gate of the Friend), which refers to the holy city of Hebron (Al-Khalil in…
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Zion Gate
This gate had to be punched through to give access to the Franciscan monastery left outside the walls by Süleyman's architects. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israeli soldiers holding Mt Zion also tried to burst through here in a desperate attempt to relieve the besieged Jewish Quarter. First they tried to dynamite the wall at a spot 100m east of the gate (it still bears the scar), and when that failed they launched an all-out assault, which ended disastrously.
A memorial plaque to the fallen is inset within the gate while the bullet-eaten façade gives some indication of how ferocious the fighting must have been. To the Jews, the gate is Sha'ar Ziyyon, while in Arabic…
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Golden Gate
Uncertainty surrounds this sealed entrance to the Haram ash-Sharif/Temple Mount. The Jewish Mishnah mentions the Temple's eastern gate and there are Herodian elements in the present structure. Some believe it to be where the Messiah will enter the city (Ezekiel 44:1-3). The gate was probably sealed by the Muslims in the 7th century to deny access to the Haram ash-Sharif/Temple Mount to non-Muslims.
A popular alternative theory is that the Muslims sealed it to prevent the Jewish Messiah from entering the Haram. The Golden Gate is known as Sha'ar ha-Rahamim (Gate of Mercy) in Hebrew and either Bab al-Rahma or Bab al-Dahriyya (Eternal Gate) in Arabic.
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St Stephen's Gate
This is the gate that gives access to the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane and, from their positions on that biblically famed hillside, Israeli paratroopers fought their way in through this gate on 7 June 1967 to capture the Old City.
Although Süleyman called it Bab al-Ghor (the Jordan Gate), the name never stuck and it became known as St Stephen's Gate after the first Christian martyr, who was stoned to death at a spot nearby. The Hebrew name, Sha'ar Ha'Arayot (Lions Gate), is a reference to the two pairs of heraldic lions carved either side of the archway.
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Herod's Gate
It was just 100m east of this gate that the Crusaders breached the city walls on 15 July 1099. The name was derived from a mistaken belief held by 16th- and 17th- century pilgrims that a nearby building was at one time the palace of Herod Antipas. In Hebrew the gate is Sha'ar HaPerahim and in Arabic, Bab as-Zahra (Flower Gate).
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New Gate
The New Gate is the most modern of all the gates, opened in 1887 by Sultan Abdul Hamid to allow direct access from the newly built pilgrim hospices to the holy sites of the Old City's Christian Quarter. In Hebrew it's ha-Sha'ar He-Chadash, and in Arabic, al-Bab al-Jadid.
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