Israelis march through Jerusalem, raising tensions in a divided city

Thousands of Israelis marched through Jerusalem on Thursday to celebrate Israel’s 1967 conquest of East Jerusalem, a contentious annual event known as Jerusalem Day that regularly sparks tensions in the city between Jews and Palestinians, who see it as a provocation.

Large crowds of Israelis, many of them from ultra-nationalist groups, marched through the old city toward the Western Wall – a remnant of an ancient support structure that once surrounded the holiest site in Judaism, the Temple Mount. The parade prompted many Palestinians, who make up the vast majority of the Old City’s residents, to close their shops in anticipation of vandalism and abuse by the protesters.

“May I be avenged on Palestine”, sung a group of about 40 participants, shortly before the parade was to officially begin. “May the name be erased.”

“Death to the Arabs,” another group of similar size chanted as the march got under way.

Ahead of further unrest, Israel Police said it had assigned 3,500 police officers to secure the parade and other side events. The Israeli military also braced for possible rocket fire from Palestinian militias in Gaza, which have occasionally fired projectiles in response to the march in the past, most notably at the start of the 2021 11-day war between Israel and Hamas.

Arab news media reported that Palestinians staged a counter-demonstration along the border between the enclave and Israel, where Palestinian rallies have often led to deadly clashes with the Israeli army.

For many Israelis, the day is an important and celebratory display of sovereignty in an ancient Jewish capital that was out of Jewish control for nearly 2,000 years and which they still feel unable to take full control. For more than a millennium, the Temple Mount has been a sacred site for Muslims — the site of the Aqsa Mosque — and Jews are technically forbidden from praying there, even if police allow them to do so informally.

But for most Palestinians, the march — known as the Flag Parade — is an offensive and unnecessary display of dominance in an area they, and most foreign governments, consider to be occupied. Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City, from Jordan during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and Palestinians hope it will one day become the capital of a future Palestinian state.

The anniversary is always exciting, but this year the stakes were raised by the unusually prominent involvement of several legislators in the government, which is the most ultra-nationalist and religious in Israel’s history.

Several lawmakers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party joined small groups of Jews who toured the grounds of the Aqsa Mosque to mark the day, angering Muslims. Yitzhak Wasserlauf, a far-right minister, and Ayala Ben-Gvir, the wife of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, also visited the site.

For some hardline Israelis, these displays of sovereignty did not go far enough. Some said the thousands of protesters should continue to parade in the parade compound, and don’t just stop at the Western Wall.

“The situation right now – where we only have a wall – is not enough,” said Tom Nissani, the leader of a small far-right group, Beyadeinu, which advocates building a new Jewish temple in the heart of the Aqsa compound.

“One day the temple will be there again, in the same place,” said Mr. Nissani, after taking part in a small side protest outside the old city walls. “That is our right to our land,” he added.

Israeli police took preventive measures against some Jewish extremists and prevented a handful from entering the old city, including Mr. Nissani, who remained outside the walls after his colleagues passed through.

But to many Palestinians, these felt like symbolic gestures when combined with the wider context: a nationalist parade through mostly Palestinian neighborhoods that prompted Palestinian shopkeepers to close, prevented Palestinian residents from moving freely through parts of the city, and some participants brought verbal abuse to Arab journalists.

“This day hurts me,” said Zaki Sabbah, a Palestinian vendor of sandwiches and snacks in the Old City. “This is a city for Jews, Muslims and Christians. So why don’t they close down the city during Ramadan or Easter?”

Some Jewish Israelis tried to set a different tone. A group of leftists briefly blocked a road from the occupied West Bank to Jerusalem, in vain to prevent groups of settlers from attending the parade. Others handed out flowers to Palestinians in the Muslim quarter of the old city.

Hiba Yazbek And Myra Noveck reporting contributed.