Far-right marchers assault Palestinians as Israel marks taking of Jerusalem

Crowds of far-right Israelis chanted insults and assaulted Palestinians throughout an annual parade for Jerusalem Day on Monday.

Chants of “dying to Arabs” and nationalistic slogans have been repeated through the occasion, which commemorates Israeli forces taking Palestinian-majority East Jerusalem through the 1967 Arab-Israeli battle.

Violence broke out as ultranationalist Jews streamed into Palestinian areas of Jerusalem’s walled Outdated Metropolis.

Opposition Chief Yair Lapid stated the occasion had develop into a competition of “hatred and racism”, including it was “a shame and an insult to Judaism”.

Israeli police have been deployed as violence broke out within the walled Outdated Metropolis of Occupied East Jerusalem shortly after noon.

Hundreds of nationalist Israelis descended to Damascus Gate, one of many major entrances. Proper-wing activists held banners that learn “67 – Jerusalem in our fingers; 2025 – Gaza in our fingers”.

Arab merchants within the Muslim Quarter who had but to shut their retailers have been harassed by younger Israeli males, witnesses stated.

Chants of “Might your village burn” and “Your house might be ours” have been heard all through the march.

Aggressive marchers have been detained and faraway from the Outdated Metropolis by Israeli police.

Nationwide safety minister Itamar Ben Gvir, of the Jewish Energy celebration, referred to as for the dying penalty for “terrorists” in an deal with to the crowds.

Gvir additionally visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest website in Islam and recognized by Jews because the Temple Mount. Jews revere it as the placement of two Biblical Temples and it’s the holiest website in Judaism.

The compound is run by a Jordanian Islamic belief. Jews are allowed to go to however not pray there.

A spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, primarily based within the West Financial institution, condemned the march and Ben Gvir’s go to to Al-Aqsa.

Israel’s ongoing battle in Gaza, “repeated incursions into the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and provocative acts resembling elevating the Israeli flag in occupied Jerusalem threaten the soundness of the complete area,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh stated in an announcement.

In a cupboard assembly on Monday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to maintain Jerusalem “united, complete, and beneath Israeli sovereignty”.

Left-wing opposition chief Yair Golan described pictures of violence within the Outdated Metropolis as “surprising”.

“That is what hatred, racism and bullying appear like,” he stated in an announcement on X.

“We are going to struggle for Jerusalem for all of us, Jews, Christians and Muslims, secular and non secular.

“Jerusalem belongs to all those that love her. We are going to struggle for her and restore her as a metropolis for us all.”

Lapid, one other opposition chief, added: “There may be nothing Jewish about this violence. The federal government ministers who stay silent within the face of those occasions are complicit on this shame.”

Yearly hundreds of Israelis march a route by Jerusalem and the annexed Outdated Metropolis, ending on the Western Wall, the holiest website the place Jews are allowed to wish in Jerusalem. On Sunday, a big Israeli flag was unfurled on the Western Wall plaza.

The parade mark Israel’s seize of East Jerusalem within the 1967 battle and the “unification” of a metropolis that the Israeli authorities says is their everlasting capital.

Palestinians additionally need Jerusalem as their future capital and far of the worldwide neighborhood regards East Jerusalem as Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.

This 12 months’s Flag March once more coincided with the battle in Gaza and escalating Israeli army operations in opposition to Palestinian militants within the West Financial institution.

Israel launched a army marketing campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border assault on 7 October 2023, by which about 1,200 individuals have been killed and 251 others have been taken hostage. Fifty-seven are nonetheless being held, about 20 of whom are assumed to be alive.

A minimum of 53,939 individuals, together with a minimum of 16,500 youngsters, have been killed in Gaza since then, in keeping with the territory’s well being ministry.