Hundreds of thousands of hajj pilgrims began streaming out of Mecca Thursday ahead of the highlight of the annual rites, which have attracted huge crowds despite the continuing pandemic and unforgiving heat. Many worshippers made the journey on foot to Mina, seven kilometres (four miles) from Mecca’s Grand Mosque, Islam’s holiest site, where they circled the black Kaaba at the start of the rituals on Wednesday. Dressed in simple robes, the pilgrims will spend the night in air-conditioned white tents in Mina, which sits in a narrow valley surrounded by rocky mountains and is transformed each ye…