Jerusalem, Israel - When Abdel Rahman Salama kneeled down to pray at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, it marked the culmination of an arduous journey.
The trip from Ramallah, in the West Bank, to Israeli-occupied and annexed east Jerusalem is a 15-minute drive on open roads. But it took Salama nine hours to get past a series of Israeli checkpoints meant to keep people like him -- men aged under 45 and women less than 35 -- out of Jerusalem.
"This is a part of our religion. There is a connection between our religion and this place," said Salama, leaning against a stone column in the sprawling mosque compound, a site that is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount.
"The Muslims, before they ever prayed facing Mecca, they prayed facing this place."
Salama joined tens of thousands of praying Palestinians in the sprawling leafy plaza surrounding the mosque. Beneath an unseasonably warm sun, worshippers crowded shaded patches under the courtyard's stone arches, amid groves of olive and pine trees.
They had been arriving for much of the past week. On Friday, they clogged the old city's narrow alleyways as hundreds of Israel police, out in force for the occasion, looked on. A military surveillance blimp hovered overhead.
Salama arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday in time for Leilat Al-Qadr, or the Night of Destiny, when Muslims believe the Koran was first revealed to the Prophet Mohammed.
The Al-Aqsa mosque is Islam's third holiest shrine, and for many devout Muslims spending the final days of Ramadan here is a cherished ritual.
"Your prayers are more powerful with God if you make them here at Al-Aqsa," explained Riyadh al-Kam, 33, a roofer from east Jerusalem.
But for Palestinians in the West Bank, reaching this revered mosque is no simple matter. Since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, Israel has imposed harsh travel restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Jerusalem lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Palestinians claim the city's eastern half as the capital of their promised, future state, but Israel insists the holy city is the "eternal and undivided capital" of the Jewish state.
Salama says he was turned away at four checkpoints, before finally sneaking into Jerusalem illegally. His ordeal opens a window into Israel's strict checkpoint regime and the daily frustrations they cause for Palestinians.
"The soldiers turned us back at the Qalandiya checkpoint," he says. "I went to Al-Ram. They turned us back again. We went to Atarot and also got turned back. At Ramot, guess what, they turned us back."
In the end, Salama slipped into Jerusalem through a suburb on the city's northern fringe. Hundreds of other Palestinians, denied entry to Jerusalem at the Bethlehem checkpoint, clashed with Israeli soldiers.
After he rose from his final prostration Friday, Salama watched the thousands of worshippers leave, filing past shopkeepers selling plastic costume jewelry for children, prayer beads, Muslim-themed dashboard trinkets, incense and assorted perfumes.
Salama's journey home, back to Ramallah, promised to be a simpler ordeal.
"I'm in no rush to leave. It's a lot easier to get back into jail than it is to break out."