Portals to History and Conflict: The Gates of Jerusalem's Old City

People are seen near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City October 7, 2019. (Reuters)
People are seen near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City October 7, 2019. (Reuters)
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Portals to History and Conflict: The Gates of Jerusalem's Old City

People are seen near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City October 7, 2019. (Reuters)
People are seen near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City October 7, 2019. (Reuters)

Muslims, Christians and Jews pass daily through the gates of Jerusalem’s Old City, on their way to and from prayers or simply to go about their everyday business in one of the most politically sensitive spots on earth.

There are eight gates - seven are open and one is sealed - along the Old City walls that were built in the 16th century by Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

It’s always busy at Damascus Gate, the main entrance to the Muslim quarter, and at Jaffa Gate, facing west toward the Mediterranean, where local residents and tourists mix in markets lining stone alleyways, said Reuters.

Lion’s Gate - two pairs of heraldic lions are carved on the archway - is also known as St. Stephen’s Gate. It faces east, toward ancient Jericho. It is often crowded with Muslim worshippers after prayers at al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine.

Many Jewish worshippers take another route to Judaism’s nearby Western Wall. They pass through the Dung Gate, the closest entrance to the holy place, and Jewish families on their way to celebrate a 13-year-old son’s Bar Mitzvah can be spotted making their way to the wall.

Security is always tight in a volatile area at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli police patrol and closed-circuit TV cameras monitor the passageways of the Old City.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem, where the Old City is located, as the capital of a state they seek to establish in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israel views all of Jerusalem, including the walled Old City that it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as its “eternal and indivisible” capital.



Melania Trump Meets with Patients, Visits Garden at Washington Children’s Hospital

 US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
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Melania Trump Meets with Patients, Visits Garden at Washington Children’s Hospital

 US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)
US First Lady Melania Trump takes part in an activity with children during a visit at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC on July 3, 2025. (AFP)

US First Lady Melania Trump visited with sick patients at Children’s National hospital in Washington on Thursday as the children made Fourth of July arts and crafts ahead of the holiday.

Trump, continuing a tradition of support by first ladies for the pediatric care center, also stopped by the hospital's rooftop “healing” garden she dedicated during the first Trump administration to first ladies of the United States.

The first lady decorated rocks for the garden with the children, drawing a red heart on one. A few kids played with stretchy slime while Trump engaged them in questions.

“Wow, that’s a big slime!” she told one child that was more focused on stretching the sticky goo.

Trump gave each of the children gift bags with blankets and teddy bears that had shirts reading, “Be Best,” her campaign focused on children’s well-being.

She quizzed the kids on their favorite sports, what music they like and how they’re feeling. Trump also took an informal poll, asking the kids whether they like chocolate and ice cream.

Most of the hands shot up, including the first lady’s.

“I like it too,” she said.

She then took the children out to the Bunny Mellon Healing Garden, where they placed small American flags and patriotically-colored pinwheels into the soil.

The garden, decked out in decorations for Independence Day on Friday, was named to honor Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, a friend of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Mellon was a philanthropist and avid gardener who designed the Rose Garden and other White House gardens during the Kennedy administration.

The garden was dedicated to America’s first ladies because of their decades-long support for the hospital and its patients, including a traditional first lady visit at Christmastime that dates back to Bess Truman.

Trump, along with chief White House groundskeeper Dale Haney, inspected a new yellow rose bush donated by the White House and planted earlier in the week at the hospital garden.

After, the first lady visited the heart and kidney unit at the hospital and met privately with a 3-year-old patient.

Later Thursday, the first lady joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office where they met with Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage in Gaza, who was released in May.