Israel’s Jerusalem Day Sparks Tension as Thousands March Through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter

JERUSALEM—Tens of thousands of Jewish nationalists marched through Jerusalem on Sunday, including through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, as tensions flared over the contested city and left Israeli security forces on high alert for violence.

Israeli Jews waved flags and sang nationalist songs—with some using anti-Arab slogans—as they walked from the largely Jewish western part of the city to the largely Palestinian eastern part to commemorate Jerusalem Day, which marks when Israel conquered East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967. Israeli police said 70,000 people attended the march.

Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem isn’t recognized by the international community and the United Nations considers it occupied territory. 

Last year, Gaza ruler Hamas fired a volley of rockets at Jerusalem during the annual march, sparking a deadly 11-day war.

Palestinians oppose the show of sovereignty because they want East Jerusalem to be the capital of any future Palestinian state. The march has always been seen as a provocative event for them, as Israeli police close shops in the Muslim quarter of the Old City to allow for the flag-bearing marchers to come through. Some marchers on Sunday were chanting anti-Arab slogans such as “death to the Arabs” and “may your village burn down.”
 

“The overwhelming majority of participants have come to celebrate but unfortunately there is a minority that has come to set the area ablaze,” said Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, referring to extremist Jewish groups. “Therefore, all incidents of violence will be dealt with severely including prosecution.”

Hamas and other Palestinian groups had called for Palestinians living in the West Bank and citizens of Israel to go to Jerusalem and oppose the march, and threatened to renew rocket attacks on Israel leading up to the event.

On Sunday, Hamas refrained from making direct threats. 

“The city of Jerusalem was and will remain Arab Palestinian, and no brutal force of foreign settler can change this timeless truth,” a Hamas spokesman said after the march had largely ended.

Nationalist Israeli-Jewish groups have framed the march as a show of Israeli sovereignty over the entire city.
 

Yair and Adi Zuntz, a religious Jewish couple from northern Israel, brought their two toddlers with them to the march, because they said it was important to show that Jerusalem belongs to Israel. The couple said they don’t usually come to the flag march but decided to go this year, in defiance of Hamas, who shot rockets at Israel during last year’s march. 

“When we go there,” said Ms. Zuntz of the Muslim quarter, the Palestinians “will be afraid. They will know who this country belongs to.”

Kfir Chen, also from northern Israel, said he didn’t think it mattered that marchers were going through Palestinian East Jerusalem as opposed to Jewish West Jerusalem.

“All of the state of Israel is a provocation to them,” he said. 

In the western, mostly Jewish, part of the city, there was a largely festive atmosphere with large groups of religious youngsters from around the country dancing in the streets and socializing.

But as the March proceeded toward the area around the Damascus Gate, usually a bustling Palestinian commercial area, Palestinians were cut off from accessing the area by police, as thousands of marchers passed through a narrow passageway into the Old City.
 

Some marchers wore black T-shirts with an M16 overlaid on a Jewish star. The M16, a gun used by both Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants, has also recently become a popular symbol on Palestinian clothing in the West Bank. 

Palestinians held their own protest against the march outside the Damascus Gate. Majed Salah, 17, was catching his breath after a chase between Palestinian protesters and Israeli border police at Nablus Road, which leads to the Damascus Gate, saying “they are all trying to celebrate their sovereignty, but they have no control.”

Majeed Ismat, a Palestinian hotel worker, said it was clear to her that the Israeli police are on high alert and concerned about Palestinian retaliation. “They are afraid that this show of bravery is going to fall over their heads,” she said.

Israeli police sent thousands of officers to secure Sunday’s march and Israel’s military has been conducting frequent raids into the West Bank to arrest militants ahead of it.

The recent tensions in Jerusalem have focused on control and access to the most sensitive holy site in the Old City. Muslims call the site the Noble Sanctuary, or the Al Aqsa Mosque, while Jews call the site the Temple Mount after the two ancient Jewish temples that once stood in the area.
 

On Sunday morning, police said 2,600 non-Muslims visited the site, including far-right Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben-Givr, who was accompanied by a large group of supporters. Groups of young Palestinians who barricaded themselves inside the Al Aqsa mosque threw stones at the nationalist Jewish visitors, and shot fireworks at police guarding the Jewish groups. The police said a fight broke out between the Jewish visitors and Palestinians at the site, leading to a number of arrests. Both Israeli Jews and Palestinians were arrested.

A group of Jewish visitors were detained for violating the visitation rules. Police didn’t specify what their violation was. 

Jewish nationalist groups had called for the flag march to pass through the sensitive holy site itself, but their request was denied by Mr. Bennett. He agreed to allow the march to pass through the Damascus Gate, a well-known entrance into the Old City that is a popular gathering place for Palestinians and where many violent incidents between Israelis and Palestinians have occurred in recent years.

Last year, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu changed the route of the march to avoid the Damascus Gate. Despite the change in route, Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem during the march, citing clashes at the Al Aqsa mosque earlier that morning as well as sensitive eviction cases against Palestinians in East Jerusalem as the reason for the rocket fire. 

The march on Sunday in Jerusalem comes at a time of wider tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. At least 20 Israelis have been killed since late March in attacks by Palestinians and Arab citizens of Israel. In the same period, at least 35 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank, including three under 18 years old in the past week.