All articles tagged with #flag march
Tens of thousands participated in the Jerusalem Day Flag March through the Old City's Muslim Quarter, leading to attacks on Palestinians and journalists. Police blocked access to the area and arrested five people for throwing objects at journalists.
Tens of thousands of Israeli nationalists marched through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's walled Old City under heavy security on Thursday in an annual event that drew condemnation from Palestinians. 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 become a show of force for Jewish nationalists and, for Palestinians, a blatant provocation meant to undermine their ties to the city. Despite fears the event could spark renewed violence following days of cross-border fire with Palestinian militant fighters in Gaza last week, the march ended with no major security incidents.
Thousands of Israelis participated in the annual Jerusalem Flag March, which is known for featuring racist chants and violence by far-right Jewish participants towards Palestinians and their property. The event concluded without a major incident, despite several dozen instances of violence and harassment. The particularly charged aspect of the Flag March is its route through the Damascus Gate and Muslim Quarter, which are overwhelmingly used by Palestinians. The Biden administration urged Israel to reroute the march away from the Muslim Quarter, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on the original path.
The Tag Meir coexistence organization conducted its ninth annual Flower March through the Old City of Jerusalem as a counterpoint to the nationalist Flag March later in the day. The left-wing organization distributed flowers to residents of the Muslim, Christian and Armenian Quarters in order to spread a message of “love, inclusion [and] solidarity” ahead of what the organizers described as the “racism and incitement” of the Flag March. The Flag March, organized by hardline right-wing and religious organizations and dedicated to celebrating the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, proceeds through the Damascus Gate of the Old City and through the Muslim Quarter before ending up at the Western Wall plaza.
Palestinian businesses in Jerusalem were forced to close ahead of Israel’s “flag march,” which marks Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in 1967 and has previously led to violence and racist slogans being chanted. A heavy police presence was seen in the Old City, where the majority of Jerusalem’s Palestinian population live, as hundreds of stores were ordered to close and multiple checkpoints set up to control the security of the event. Some Palestinians say they voluntarily chose to temporarily shutter their businesses to avoid harassment.
Hamas and Gaza's incendiary balloon unit have threatened to disrupt the Jerusalem Day Flag March, an annual event where thousands of Jewish Israelis march through the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Muslim Quarter, waving Israeli flags. Hamas has warned that the march "will not pass" and that "the response will inevitably come." Meanwhile, Gaza's balloon unit has said it will resume activities on Thursday. Security officials believe the chances of rocket fire from Gaza during the march are slim, but some officials have feared a repeat of 2021 when Hamas fired rockets toward Jerusalem just as the march was starting, sparking over a week of fighting between Israel and Gazan terror groups.
The US is calling for "calm" and "restraint" ahead of a controversial nationalist parade through the Old City of Jerusalem on Thursday, where tens of thousands of Jewish Israelis are expected to march through the Muslim Quarter waving Israeli flags. The event will come less than a week after Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad finalized a ceasefire agreement following five days of deadly conflict. The annual rally of religious nationalists is regularly a tense affair, with hate speech and sometimes violence by Jewish participants toward Palestinians.