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Jerusalem’s ma­jor holy sites are shut­tered, and fam­i­lies are de­ject­ed and ex­haust­ed ahead of Passover and East­er as the Iran war en­ters its fifth week. The mood stands in stark con­trast to a usu­al spring, when longer days her­ald a pe­ri­od of fam­i­ly gath­er­ings and an in­flux of tourists for the ma­jor Jew­ish and Chris­t­ian hol­i­days.

Met­al shut­ters are drawn on near­ly all stores in the Old City, home to key holy sites, and on­ly scat­tered foot­steps echo on de­sert­ed stone al­ley­ways. Vast plazas are miss­ing the typ­i­cal throngs of faith­ful and tourists.

Jerusalem has large­ly es­caped past wars, with Is­rael’s en­e­mies ap­pear­ing to be hes­i­tant to launch mis­siles near the city’s Mus­lim holy sites. But since Is­rael and the Unit­ed States launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, Jerusalem has re­peat­ed­ly come un­der fire.