The collapsed ramp that leads to the Mughrabi Gate of the Temple Mount appears to be no closer to reconstruction.  From Arutz-7:

Jordanian pressure is preventing the completion of a walkway to the Temple Mount next to the Western Wall (Kotel), according to Nadav Shragai, senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. The Islamic Historical Society has filed suit in the Jerusalem District Court, demanding a halt to the work on widening the Kotel Plaza and the renovation of the Rambam (Mughrabim) Gate entrance to the Temple Mount. The court is awaiting a reply from the Prime Minister’s Office on the matter. […] The plan for renovating the walkway to the Rambam Gate has been approved, Shragai said, but the government is delaying its implementation. “At first they wanted the bridge to be suspended from support columns,” the veteran former journalist explained, “but environmental groups objected. In the end it was decided that the bridge would be placed on what remains of the [dirt] ramp, in order to avoid damage to houses in the Mughrabim neighborhood. This plan currently has the necessary approvals and all that is needed is a construction permit from the Kotel Heritage Fund which answers to the Prime Minister’s Office. For some reason, because of pressure from the Jordanian government, the government is not granting this permit.”

The full story is here. Collapsed ramp (center) and temporary wooden ramp (left).  The Mughrabi Gate is just visible at the end of the temporary ramp.

This editorial at Ynetnews gives one side’s perspective on how the Western Wall prayer plaza came to be controlled by the ultra-orthodox.

Here’s a snippet:

But then, for the first time in its history, iron barricades were placed in the forward part of the plaza, close to the Kotel itself. This was the first mehitzah, the first separation between men and women, in the history of the Kotel. There had already been such attempts in the past. At the end of Turkish rule and under the British Mandate attempts had been made to separate between the sexes in the area next to the Kotel, but they failed. During most of those years when Jews had access to the Western Wall and during those years when they did not, there was never a mehitzah at the Kotel. But now a mehitzah was put up, which put aside most of the area – and the best part thereof – for the use of the men; barricades were put up to mark the entrances; and ushers were placed to assure the separation and to distribute paper kippot to those men who wished to approach the Kotel itself.
[…]
The escalation of more recent years is due particularly to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, known as the “Rabbi of the Kotel.” He did not invent anything, but he perfected the system: swearing-in ceremonies of the IDF became fewer and further between; an attempt was made to separate the sexes at the ceremony in which new immigrants received their identity cards; signs calling for modesty were posted in every corner; Israeli flags suddenly disappeared (and meanwhile were returned). Most of world Jewry is not Orthodox, but the rabbi of the holiest place in the world to the Jewish people is Orthodox – and not just ordinary Orthodox, but Haredi.

The full editorial is here.

HT: The Bible and Interpretation

  Jews praying at Western Wall, early 1900s
Source: The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection: Jerusalem