Shops in a row, Old Jerusalem

Haj felicitation graffiti

This one is for Tech Whirling Dervish (ifaqeer aka Sabahat Ashraf)

Facade detail, Dome of the rock

The center of controversy, Dome of the Rock (Temple Mount)

Waiting vendor

Souvenir shop in Jerusalem old city

last one

yet another, along wall of old city

Another view

Graves in Muslim cemetery

Seeing solar water heaters everywhere made me very happy

Sign outside Muslim graveyard

Pilgrims gather around their guide

For some reason I thought her glasses didn't go too well with her fatigue

Muslim graveyard inscription

Soldiers and barricades
They were preparing for Jum'a prayers.

Here is a Jerusalem video I uploaded on Google today:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1019797493772308763

Please take a look and comment.
Thanks

Tower of David sign

"To Al-Aqsa", sign reads

An alley leading to Al-Aqsa mosque

Post Office in East Jerusalem

Herod's Gate and city wall of Old Jerusalem

Herod's Gate of Old Jerusalem

Old Jerusalem, Easter poster

Old Jerusalem, cobblestone street

Old city alley with election posters

Bab-al-dimashq
View from East Jerusalem. You go out of Damascus Gate to enter East Jerusalem (Arab part of Jerusalem outside Old City).

Sign in three languages

Old City as seen from Bab-al-Khalil (Jaffa Gate)

Bab-al-Khalil (Jaffa Gate)
If you go from West Jerusalem you enter the old city through Bab-al-Khalil (now popularly known as Jaffa Gate). This is a view of Bab-al-Khalil from inside.

Walking towards Balad-al-Qadeem we now saw the surrounding wall of the old city.

Zion Square, West Jerusalem

West Jerusalem
It was the last day of Passover.

Mediterranean, Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv beachfront
Both hotels that we stayed in, Hotel Nes Ziona and Hotel Eilat, were close to the beach. These were inexpensive hotels that mostly backpackers stay in. I had made reservation at Hotel Nes Ziona from Pakistan. Most probably it was the only call that day (or month) that was made from Karachi to Tel Aviv. Of course I was using Vonage so neither Karachi nor Tel Aviv knew.

A Tel Aviv street
Our stay in Tel Aviv was very short--we were there for just two days.

Graffiti on a Tel Aviv wall

A concert ad

A theater in Tel Aviv

Now that I am a bit settled
Let me post the pictures in the order they were taken.
We landed at Ben Gurion Airport on April 17. It was a nested tour, a separate ticket that would take us from London (our stopover in the original trip) to Tel Aviv and back.
If you have a Muslim name or you were born in a Muslim-majority country you are a suspect in Israel. The girl at immigration at Ben Gurion flipped through our passports a couple of times. I asked her not to stamp--an Israeli stamp in that little book would make you persona non grata in many Muslim-majority countries (see how carefully I am avoiding calling countries Islamic or Muslim!). She handed back our passports with a card that read "Gate Pass." Well, their Gate Pass is not the kind of ticket that would whisk you out of the airport. That 'Gate Pass' meant, 'Thoroughly check these people and find out what they are really up to.' Coming out of the immigration we were duly stopped and interrogated. What was the purpose of our visit? [Well, actually we are suicide bombers.] Where do we plan to stay? [We are heading off to Gaza to get explosives.] Do we know anyone in Israel? [Not quite, You know how careless Bin Laden is, he just asked us to go without giving us names of Al-Qaida to contact in Israel.]
Luckily there was an American of Palestinian origin ahead of us. Her interrogation was more heated, so they let us off easy.