Daily Times

Colourful lanterns and ornate Ramadan decorations filled the streets of Jerusalem on Monday as Palestinians prepared for a holy month freer of COVID-19 restrictions than at the height of the pandemic. Ahead of Ramadan’s expected start on Tuesday, the mood in the Old City was far more joyful than last year when prayers were suspended at the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site. Although Jerusalem is still without foreign tourists, far more people were roaming the Old City, where shops reported brisk business. “Because of coronavirus, the situation has been bad for the merchants and the people. Now with coronavirus vaccination, the situation got better,” said one shopper, Mohammad Abu Sbeih. Israel has included Palestinians in East Jerusalem in its swift rollout of vaccines. It annexed the eastern half of the city after capturing it along with the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war.