An in-depth examination conducted by aerial photography
expert Mordechai Aharoni of pictures taken, reveals that only
8,867 people participated in the leftist rally held in Sacher
Park at the same time that the massive prayer rally was held
at the city's entrance.
Aharoni, director of Pentomp, has specialized in aerial
photography, as well as in surveys and the deciphering of
aerial photographs, for thirty years. He has appeared over
100 times in courts as an expert witness. The day after the
massive rally in Jerusalem, Aharoni received a series of
aerial photographs taken for Manof -- the Chareidi
Information Center, by an American Jew, who had chartered a
helicopter above the demonstration sites in order to
photograph the prayer rally and the leftist rally.
In his opinion, presented to Manof, Aharoni writes that his
estimates are based on a photograph received from the Tatzpit
company, taken at 3:50 Sunday afternoon above Sacher Park.
"The counting was carefully done and is based only on the
amount of discernible people in this photograph at the
particular hour it was taken," says Aharoni, who notes that
the report could contain a range of inaccuracy only between
10 and 12%.
According to his report, there were 8,867 people in Sacher
Park. This estimate includes the people seen walking on the
roads leading to the park.
The professional, in-depth-counting of the participants at
the prayer rally in Jerusalem, which included hundreds of
thousands of participants, still hasn't been completed
because it is difficult to make estimates of such large
numbers quickly. One of the reasons for the difficulty is
that the hundreds of thousands of participants assembled on
many streets in the region, among them: Yaffo, Sarei
Yisroel, Hatzvi, Yirmiyohu, and many side streets. The
deciphering of the aerial photographs of these streets will
be concluded within a few days.
