Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and its peace process. As a result of all of these events, despite having an area of only 0.9 km 2 ( 3⁄ 8 sq mi), the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance namely the Temple Mount (also known as Al-Aqsa or Haram al-Sharif) with the Dome of the Rock, Al-Aqsa Mosque and Western Wall, as well as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In Islamic tradition, the Islamic prophet Muhammad made his Night Journey to Jerusalem in 621 CE, from where he ascended to heaven and spoke to God, according to the Quran. This is due to its status as the first qibla (the standard direction for Muslim prayers) before Mecca. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city after Mecca and Medina in present-day Saudi Arabia. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible that was adopted by Christians as the Old Testament, was reinforced by the New Testament's account of Jesus' crucifixion and subsequent resurrection there. The sobriquet of 'holy city' ( עיר הקודש, 'Ir ha-Qodesh) was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic importance for the Jewish people.

Modern scholars argue that Jews branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatrous-and later monotheistic-religion centred on El/ Yahweh. David's son and successor, Solomon, later commissioned the building of the First Temple in the city. Īccording to the Hebrew Bible, the city was conquered from the Jebusites by the Israelite king David, who established it as the capital of the United Kingdom of Israel. In 2015, Jerusalem had a population of some 850,000 residents, comprising approximately 200,000 secular Jewish Israelis, 350,000 Haredi Jews, and 300,000 Palestinian Arabs. Since 1860, Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and has been on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 1982. Today, these walls define the Old City, which has historically been split into four areas known since the 19th century as the Jewish Quarter, the Armenian Quarter, the Christian Quarter, and the Muslim Quarter (clockwise from the southeast end). In 1538 CE, the surrounding city walls were rebuilt for a last time under Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire. Ownership of the city than passed into Muslim hands with the conquest of the Levant in 638 CE. In 63 BCE, it was captured by Rome, and in 70 CE, following a Jewish revolt, destroyed again. It was first destroyed by the Babylonians in 587–586 BCE, and rebuilt during the Persian era, and continued to rise in stature throughout the Hellenistic period. During its history, the city has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. Ī site of permanent inhabitation since at least the 3rd millennium BCE, significant construction activities began throughout the city in the 9th century BCE, and by the 8th century BCE, Jerusalem had developed into the capital of the Iron Age Kingdom of Judah. Due to this long-running dispute, neither claim is widely recognized internationally.

Israel controls the entire city and maintains its primary governmental institutions there, while the Palestinian National Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization ultimately foresee it as the seat of power for the State of Palestine. The city straddles the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital. Situated on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, it is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy for the three major Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jerusalem ( / dʒ ə ˈ r uː s əl ə m/ Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם Yerushaláyim Arabic: القُدس al-Quds) is a city in Western Asia.

Metro conflict rule 34