JERUSALEM (AP) — Chanting “Death to Arabs” and singing “May your village burn,” groups of young Israeli Jews made their way through Muslim neighborhoods of Jerusalem's Old City on Monday ahead of an annual march marking Israel's conquest of the eastern part of the city.
Palestinian shopkeepers had closed up early and police lined the narrow alleys before the march that often becomes a rowdy and sometimes violent procession of ultranationalist Jews. A policeman raised his arms in celebration at one point, recognizing a marcher and going in for a hug. It was blazing hot, with temperatures hitting 98 degrees Fahrenheit (37 Celsius) in late afternoon.
A small group of protesters, including an Israeli member of parliament, meanwhile, stormed a compound in east Jerusalem belonging to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.
The march commemorates Jerusalem Day — which marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war. The event, set to begin later in the day, threatens to inflame tensions that are already rife in the restive city amid nearly 600 days of war in Gaza.
Jerusalem lies at the heart of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, who each see the city as a key part of their national and religious identity. It is one of the most intractable issues of the conflict and often emerges as a flashpoint.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its eternal, undivided capital. Its annexation of east Jerusalem is not internationally recognized. Palestinians want an independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital.
Last year’s procession, which came during the first year of the war in Gaza, saw ultranationalist Israelis attack a Palestinian journalist in the Old City and call for violence against Palestinians. Four years ago, the march helped set off an 11-day war in Gaza.
Tour buses carrying young ultranationalist Jews lined up near entrances to the Old City, bringing hundreds from outside Jerusalem, including settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Police, who were calling the procession the “Dance of Flags,” said they had detained a number of individuals and “acted swiftly to prevent violence, confrontations and provocations.”
Speaking in an east Jerusalem archaeological park located in a Palestinian neighborhood, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to "preserve a united, whole Jerusalem, and the sovereignty of Israel.” He said the government was encouraging foreign embassies to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and investing billions of shekels in the city's development.
Volunteers from the pro-peace organization Standing Together and the Free Jerusalem collective, which works with Palestinians in Jerusalem, tried to position themselves between the marchers and residents to prevent violence.
One shopkeeper swept the floor after the marchers tipped over his bale of bay leaves. A group of young Jewish Israelis followed a Palestinian woman through the streets, calling her “charmouta” — Arabic for “whore.”
“This is our home, this is our state," shouted one protester at a Palestinian woman.
“Go away from here!" she responded, in Hebrew.
Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the country’s police force, visited a flashpoint hilltop compound holy to Jews and Muslims, where the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located today. One Israeli lawmaker, Yitzhak Kroizer, could be seen praying.
Perceived encroachments by Jews on the site have set off widespread violence on a number of occasions going back decades.
“We are marking a holiday for Jerusalem,” Ben-Gvir said Monday at the site, accompanied by other lawmakers and a rabbi. “There are truly many Jews flooding the Temple Mount. How nice to see that.”
Beyadenu, an activist group that encourages Jewish visits to the site, said dozens of people had ascended to the holy compound Monday draped in the Israeli flag, and had prayed there.
Since Israel captured the site in 1967, a tenuous understanding between Israeli and Muslim religious authorities at the compound has allowed Jews — who revere the site as the Temple Mount, the location of the biblical temples — to visit but not pray there.
Ben-Gvir says he is changing that status quo. Palestinians already say it has long been eroding because of an increase in Jewish visits to the site.
“Today, thank God, it is possible to pray on the Temple Mount,” Ben-Gvir said at the site, according to a statement from his office.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there has been no change to the status quo. Police said that Monday's march would not enter the site.
For many in Israel, Jerusalem Day is a joyous occasion that marks a moment of redemption in their country's history, when access to the key Jewish holy site of the Western Wall was restored and the city was unified. But over recent years, the Jerusalem Day march in the city has become dominated by young nationalist and religious Israelis and on some occasions has descended into violence.
“A huge statement is being made to the Arab world this Jerusalem day,” said Daniel Luria, executive director of settler organization Ateret Cohanim. “If they think they can wash the Jews away from Jerusalem, then they don’t understand the perseverance, they don’t understand the connection, and they don’t understand our relationship with God.”
He said that the racist songs and chants were coming from a subsection of “hot-headed youth” and “were not a tragedy.”
UNRWA West Bank coordinator Roland Friedrich said around a dozen Israeli protesters, including Yulia Malinovsky, one of the legislators behind an Israeli law that banned UNRWA, forcefully entered the compound, climbing its main gate in view of Israeli police.
Protesters held a banner calling for the compound to be turned into an Israeli settlement. Israel’s Housing Minister stated last year that he had instructed the ministry to “examine how to return the area to the State of Israel and utilize it for housing.”
Israel has accused the agency, which is the biggest aid provider in Gaza, of being infiltrated by Hamas, allegations denied by the U.N.
There was no immediate comment from Israeli police.
The compound has stood mainly empty since the end of January, after UNRWA asked staff not to work from there, fearing for their safety. The UN says it has not vacated the compound and that it is protected under international law.
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