Jerusalem- The Wailing Wall

June 7, 1967



(Azure)

Several hours later, Yitzhak Yifat , a twenty-four-year-old reservist about to begin medical school, reached the Wall. As part of the brigade’s 66th Battalion, he and his friends had fought in the Six Day War’s toughest battle: Intimate combat against elite Jordanian Legionnaires in the trenches of Ammunition Hill, on the road to Mount Scopus.

Sometime around 10:15 on the morning of June 7, 1967… The first reservist paratroopers of Brigade 55 broke through the Lion’s Gate leading into the Old City of Jerusalem and reached the narrow enclave of the Western Wall. Having just fought a fierce two-day battle in the streets of east Jerusalem, they grieved for lost friends, and grieved as well for their own lost innocence in what for many was their first experience of combat. They leaned against the Wall, some in exhaustion, some in prayer. Several wept, instinctively connecting to the Wall’s tradition of mourning the destruction of the Temple and the loss of Jewish sovereignty—precisely at the moment when Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem had been restored.

“The Photograph: A Search For June 1967”

Yossi Klein Halevi

Azure

Summer 2007

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The Palestinian Authority or Fatah-Hamas Alliance will submit a proposal to the United Nations this week claiming the Western Wall as its own.

Israel National News reported:

In an attempt to gain international legitimacy for its rewriting of history, the Palestinian Authority (PA) will submit a resolution to UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) next week claiming the Kotel (Western Wall) as its own.

The proposal calls to have the Kotel in Jerusalem – which is an outer wall of the Temple Mount that is the holiest site in Judaism – recognized as part of Al-Aqsa Mosque located on the Mount, reports Yedioth Aharonoth on Friday.

The PA is not a member of the UNESCO Executive Council, and therefore the proposal will be submitted for a vote next week on its behalf by the six Arab member states of Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Senior Israeli sources revealed that the PA is working in parallel to have the proposal submitted at the UNESCO plenum, where the PA is recognized as a state.

In response, Israel is working behind the scenes to rally opposition to the proposal, although there is an automatic Muslim majority making its adoption all but certain.

A copy of the proposal reveals its main points, which begin with the call “to declare and confirm that the Western Wall is part of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and is called Buraq Plaza. The same applies to the Mughrabi Gate.”

Buraq Plaza refers to the “Al-Buraq” Wall, a name given by Muslims to the Kotel in the 1920s in an attempt to claim it. The name refers to Mohammed’s “winged steed” he supposedly rode to Jerusalem in his “night journey.”