Israel’s nationalist ‘Flag March’ in Jerusalem rattles Palestinians

JERUSALEM — Tens of thousands of Israeli nationalists marched through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's walled Old City on Thursday in an annual event that has drawn condemnation from the Palestinians and stirred fears of renewed violence.

The parade is the main celebration on Jerusalem Day, when Israel marks its capture of Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. The event has increasingly become a show of force for Jewish nationalists and, for Palestinians, a blatant provocation meant to undermine their ties to the city.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the event "a splendid day on which to celebrate our return to our eternal capital." But just days after the end of the latest bout of cross-border fire with Gaza, the march drew fears of a repeat round of conflict with Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

Around 2,500 officers were safeguarding the march and trying to keep it peaceful, police said, having prepared for all scenarios, including violence and anti-Arab chants by some marchers toward Palestinians and rocket fire from Gaza.

Many Palestinians shuttered their shops in the Old City, where march organizers hung Israeli flags along the cobblestoned alleyways. Rowdy crowds of Jewish youth were seen dancing and chanting, and in some cases confronting Palestinian youth.

As crowds gathered at the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City, a handful of flags belonging to Lehava, a far-right anti-Arab group, could be seen among the mass of blue and white Israeli national flags.

Earlier on Thursday, hundreds of Jewish pilgrims, including members of parliament, toured the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City. The site, which Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary, is the third holiest in Islam and also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, a vestige of their faith's two ancient temples.

The visits passed without incident, but Palestinians have been angered by the rising number of Jewish visitors to the compound, some of whom defy a ban on non-Muslim prayer there.

Flag marches

Palestinians view the heavily policed Jerusalem Day procession as part of a broader campaign to bolster Jewish presence across the city to their detriment.

Israel, which decades ago annexed East Jerusalem in a move that has not won international recognition, regards the entire city as its capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem, the part captured by Israel in 1967, as the capital of a future state that would include the West Bank and Gaza.

Palestinians organized their own flag marches across the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Palestinian Islamist-ruled Gaza on Thursday, with some processions only a few hundred meters away from the Israel-Gaza separation fence.

"The Flag March does not give the occupation the legitimacy it seeks with its absurd policies and repressive practices," Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said.

In Gaza, senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said the group was not interested in an escalation of conflict with Israel, but that if the marchers reached the Al-Aqsa compound and caused trouble, Hamas would have to act.

"If they cross the lines they should not blame anyone," Naim said.

During the 2021 march, Hamas, the Islamist group that governs the blockaded coastal enclave, fired rockets into Israel that triggered an 11-day war which killed at least 250 Palestinians in Gaza and 13 people in Israel.

Last month, an Israeli police raid in the Al-Aqsa compound drew rocket fire from groups in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

Hamas has cast itself as a defender of Jerusalem's Palestinians and Muslim holy sites in recent years. But with another round of fighting between Israel and Gaza militants ending only last week, in which 34 Palestinians and an Israeli were killed, the appetite for more hostilities appeared low.

Egypt, which mediated Saturday's truce, spoke to Israeli and Palestinian factions ahead of the march in efforts to reduce tensions. — Reuters