Millions of Muslims begin Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca

 
Over 1.5 million Muslim pilgrims gathered in Saudi Arabia's Mecca as the pious annual Islamic pilgrimage, Hajj, began on Friday against the grim backdrop of the Gaza war.

Hajj is the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia that is required once in a lifetime of every Muslim who can afford it and is physically able to make it. It is a moving spiritual experience for pilgrims who believe it absolves sins and brings them closer to God, while uniting the world's more than 2 billion Muslims.

The rituals during the Hajj largely commemorate the Quran's accounts of Prophet Ibrahim (A), his son Prophet Ismail and Ismail's (A) mother Hajar - or Abraham and Ismael as they are named in the Bible.

Crowds of robed worshippers will circle the Kaaba, the black cubic structure at Mecca's Grand Mosque, with many expressing sadness eight months into the Israel-Hamas war.

"Our brothers are dying, and we can see it with our own eyes," a tearful 75-year-old Zahra Benizahra from Morocco told AFP. Belinda Elham of Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population, said she would "pray every day so that what's happening in Palestine ends".

Palestinian authorities said 4,200 pilgrims from the occupied West Bank arrived in Mecca for Hajj, according to AP. Saudi authorities said 1,000 more from the families of Palestinians killed or wounded in the war in Gaza also arrived to perform Hajj at the invitation of King Salman of Saudi Arabia. The 1,000 invitees were already outside Gaza - mostly in Egypt - before closure of the Rafah crossing.

This year's Hajj also saw Syrian pilgrims travelling to Mecca on direct flights from Damascus for the first time in more than a decade. The move was part of an ongoing thaw in relations between Saudi Arabia and conflict-stricken Syria. Syrians in rebel-held areas used to cross the border into neighbouring Turkey in their exhausting trip to Mecca for Hajj.