Million-plus begin hajj pilgrimage under shadow of Gaza war

More than a million Muslim pilgrims were in Mecca Friday for the start of a hajj pilgrimage held against the grim backdrop of the Gaza war and in exhausting summer heat.

Crowds of robed worshippers will circle the Kaaba, 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".

Israel launched its war on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,190 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli official figures.

Israel's offensive has killed more than 37,000 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Saudi King Salman issued a decree on Monday to host 1,000 pilgrims "from the families of martyrs and the wounded from the Gaza Strip", bringing to 2,000 the number of Palestinian pilgrims to be given the special honour at this year's hajj, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

However, the Gulf kingdom's minister in charge of religious pilgrimages, Tawfiq al-Rabiah, warned last week that "no political activity" will be tolerated, and it was unclear how pilgrims might express solidarity with the Palestinians.

  'Drink water regularly' 

The hajj, one of the world's largest religious gatherings, involves a series of rituals in Mecca and its surroundings in western Saudi Arabia that take several days to complete.

One of the five pillars of Islam, it must be performed at least once by...