Remembering the demolition of Jerusalem’s Moroccan Quarter - in pictures

The destruction of the homes next to the Western Wall for a huge plaza on June 11, 1967. Hadani Dan/ National Archive

Mahmoud Al Mahdi, 73, and his wife Oafish Al Maghreb, 56, outside their home on a rocky hillside in Abu Dis, a Jerusalem suburb separated from the holy city by Israel’s concrete security barrier. Mr Al Mahdi was at university in Iraq on June 10, 1967 - the day that Israel destroyed the neighbourhood where he grew up in. Heidi Levine for The National

For Mr Al Mahdi, living in view of the Western Wall was a special part of growing up. The wall, sacred to Jews as a remnant of the retaining wall of the Second Jewish Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD, is also a religious place for Muslims. Here, he is hanging a framed map of Palestine that consists of tiny embroidery stitches, handmade by his wife. Photo by Heidi Levine for The National

Zulfa Omar Mughrabi, 77, sitting with her grandson and other family members in their home in the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, still remembers the demolition of the Moroccan Quarter. She said that her family was the last to leave the Moroccan Quarter. Heidi Levine for The National

Overlooking the Moroccan Quarter towards the Temple Mount and Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1920. Courtesy American Colony (Jerusalem)

Meron Benvenisti, an Israeli administrator to East Jerusalem who later served as deputy mayor, was part of the decision to destroy the Moroccan Quarter. He witnessed the demolition first-hand. 'It was inevitable, absolutely inevitable,' he told The National, sitting on a brown couch in his apartment in an assisted living facility outside of Jerusalem on May 25, 2017. Heidi Levine For The National

An Israeli tour guide shows one of the most iconic photographs of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war to his group of tourists from the Philippines near the entrance to the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem on May 20, 2017. The black and white photograph of three Israeli paratroopers standing at the Western Wall was taken on June 7,1967 by Time Life Israeli photographer David Rubinger. Heidi Levine for The National

The Moroccan Quarter is a historical footnote, largely forgotten by the world and remembered by Palestinians as one in a string of countless tragedies.

The 1967 Arab-Israeli War placed the Western Wall, the second most sacred site in Judaism, into Jewish hands for the first time in 2,000 years. But one people’s spiritual homecoming led to another’s dispossession.