JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Around 320,000 worshipers headed to Al-Aqsa mosque to take part in prayers on the third Friday of Ramadan, the Al-Aqsa Foundation for Waqf and Heritage said.
Thousands of Palestinians traveled from inside Israel and the occupied West Bank to the Al-Aqsa Mosque to perform the third Friday prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.
The Israeli military had announced it would ease restrictions on Palestinians during the Ramadan holy month, although people waiting in line at checkpoints said that Israeli police were spread across every corner of Jerusalem checking IDs "many times a day" due to security restrictions.
The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Waqf and Heritage and other groups are implementing a campaign under the Ministry of Religious Affairs to protect the mosque during the Ramadan period.
The campaign includes providing two meals for people who are fasting in the daytime as well as hundreds of buses to carry people to the mosque and a religious education program
A boy watches as women walk in front of a section of Israel's controversial
barrier near Qalandiya checkpoint on the third Friday of the holy
month of Ramadan August 3, 2012. (Reuters/Baz Ratner)
The compound, containing the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, is the third holiest site in Islam and abuts the site where Jews believe the ancient Second Temple stood.
The flashpoint site is under the custody of the Islamic endowment authorities.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem after a 1967 war in a move never recognized abroad.