hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from the united states and all around the world. i m leila torok. escalating tensions in the middle east. israel s military carries out attacks in syrian territory, casting a shadow over a weekend of religious celebrations were live in jerusalem with the latest abortion pill controversy will examine the contradictory rulings that led to a legal standoff over an established medication to induce abortion. and the cultural war debate over transgender athletes will speak to a 13 year old transgender cross country runner and his mother on their experience with discrimination. live from cnn center. this is cnn newsroom. with laila harre. one of the holiest times of the year, is now underway in jerusalem, religious events of different faiths are being observed from easter sunday mass to prayers during ramadan to the passover priestly blessing happening right now, with thousands of worshippers gathering at jerusalem s western wall. earlier
theater of concern in all of this comes at a time when everyone is looking at the old city. remember that this latest bout of violence really began at al marks, but aqsa mosque rather on wednesday when israeli police raided al aqsa mosque right now , again, all eyes back at that flashpoint complex known as al haram al sharif, the noble sanctuary to muslims known as temple mount. two jews right now , there are coinciding, overlapping prayers taking place . you have those live images showing what is called the priestly blessing a very important and special prayer in judaism taking place at the western wall simultaneously overnight, there were prayers taking place at al aqsa mosque. it s important to note here that it s also the holy month of ramadan. very normal part of tradition of ramadan is to pray overnight in mosques, so that was taking place as well. that took place peacefully last night, but this morning eyewitnesses saying that muslim worshippers were blocked band from entering f
loud down at the western wall. and these women who go down and try to wear the shawls and try to do their prayers out loud are often detained when they go down there. they ve been doing this by the way for more than two decades. why are they doing it? because they believe what they are doing should be perfectly legal and perfectly normal because they say they re just trying to pray as they wish at the holiest site for prayer in judaism. so what s happening is you re seeing a clash of tradition, if you will. these women by the way call themselves the women of the wall. and they go down to the wall quite often. sometimes they re detained, sometimes they aren t. this time they were detained. and they ve been detained in february they were detained again by police. and police say, look, we re just following what the court said which was that this goes against local customs and that the women can t pray there out loud and wear the shawls, but they can pray in another area that s not at th