JERUSALEM — Tens of 1000’s of Israeli nationalists marched by the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s walled Old City on Thursday in an annual occasion that has drawn condemnation from the Palestinians and stirred fears of renewed violence.
The parade is the primary celebration on Jerusalem Day, when Israel marks its seize of Jerusalem within the 1967 Middle East warfare. The occasion has more and more grow to be a present of pressure for Jewish nationalists and, for Palestinians, a blatant provocation meant to undermine their ties to town.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu known as the occasion “a splendid day on which to celebrate our return to our eternal capital.” But simply days after the tip of the newest bout of cross-border fireplace with Gaza, the march drew fears of a repeat spherical of battle with Hamas and different Palestinian factions.
Around 2,500 officers have been safeguarding the march and making an attempt to maintain it peaceable, police stated, having ready for all eventualities, together with violence and anti-Arab chants by some marchers towards Palestinians and rocket fireplace from Gaza.
Many Palestinians shuttered their retailers within the Old City, the place march organizers hung Israeli flags alongside the cobblestoned alleyways. Rowdy crowds of Jewish youth have been seen dancing and chanting, and in some circumstances confronting Palestinian youth.
As crowds gathered on the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City, a handful of flags belonging to Lehava, a far-right anti-Arab group, could possibly be seen among the many mass of blue and white Israeli nationwide flags.
Earlier on Thursday, a whole bunch of Jewish pilgrims, together with members of parliament, toured the Al-Aqsa mosque compound within the Old City. The web site, which Muslims name the Noble Sanctuary, is the third holiest in Islam and likewise revered by Jews because the Temple Mount, a vestige of their religion’s two historic temples.
The visits handed with out incident, however Palestinians have been angered by the rising variety of Jewish guests to the compound, a few of whom defy a ban on non-Muslim prayer there.
Flag marches
Palestinians view the closely policed Jerusalem Day procession as a part of a broader marketing campaign to bolster Jewish presence throughout town to their detriment.
Israel, which a long time in the past annexed East Jerusalem in a transfer that has not received worldwide recognition, regards your entire metropolis as its capital. Palestinians need East Jerusalem, the half captured by Israel in 1967, because the capital of a future state that would come with the West Bank and Gaza.
Palestinians organized their very own flag marches throughout the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Palestinian Islamist-ruled Gaza on Thursday, with some processions just 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 stated.
In Gaza, senior Hamas official Bassem Naim stated the group was not excited by an escalation of battle with Israel, however that if the marchers reached the Al-Aqsa compound and brought about bother, Hamas must act.
“If they cross the lines they should not blame anyone,” Naim stated.
During the 2021 march, Hamas, the Islamist group that governs the blockaded coastal enclave, fired rockets into Israel that triggered an 11-day warfare which killed no less than 250 Palestinians in Gaza and 13 individuals in Israel.
Last month, an Israeli police raid within the Al-Aqsa compound drew rocket fireplace from teams in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
Hamas has forged itself as a defender of Jerusalem’s Palestinians and Muslim holy websites lately. But with one other spherical of preventing between Israel and Gaza militants ending solely final week, by which 34 Palestinians and an Israeli have been killed, the urge for food for extra hostilities appeared low.
Egypt, which mediated Saturday’s truce, spoke to Israeli and Palestinian factions forward of the march in efforts to scale back tensions. — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
