Hamas had previous issued obscure threats over a deliberate march thru Jerusalem via Israeli ultra-nationalists. However Israeli police blocked roads and averted the marchers from attaining dense Palestinian neighborhoods in and across the Outdated Town, after a an identical match just about a 12 months in the past helped cause an Israel-Gaza battle.
Police used parked vans and barricades simply out of doors the partitions of the Outdated Town to near the principle highway main right down to Damascus Gate, the epicenter of closing 12 months’s unrest. After some pushing and shoving with police, the marchers rallied close to the barricades, waving flags, making a song and chanting.
Israeli police deployed in massive numbers across the ancient Outdated Town, house to primary non secular websites for Jews, Christians and Muslims, out of outrage that confrontations may just additional inflame an already stressful state of affairs all over the Jewish vacation of Passover and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Tensions have surged in fresh weeks after a sequence of fatal assaults within Israel, adopted via army operations within the occupied West Financial institution. On Monday, Palestinian militants fired a rocket from the Gaza Strip into Israel for the primary time in months, and Israel answered with airstrikes. That rocket used to be intercepted and there have been no casualties from the alternate.
It got here after repeated clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians on the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, recognized to Jews because the Temple Mount.
The hilltop shrine in Jerusalem’s Outdated Town is the 3rd holiest in Islam, whilst for Jews it’s their holiest website online, the place two temples stood in antiquity. It’s the emotional flooring 0 for the Israeli-Palestinian struggle and a flashpoint for earlier rounds of violence.
Previous on Wednesday, a small staff of Palestinian protesters threw rocks at police whilst masses of Jewish guests entered the flashpoint holy website online.
Novice video from the scene perceived to display police the use of sponge-tipped plastic projectiles supposed to be non-lethal because the protesters barricaded themselves within the mosque. Police mentioned a firebomb thrown via some of the protesters set a carpet out of doors the mosque on hearth, however it used to be temporarily extinguished. No accidents have been reported.
Hamas mentioned Wednesday forward of the march that Israel would undergo “complete accountability for the repercussions” if it allowed the marchers “to manner our holy websites,” with out elaborating.
Itamar Ben Gvir, an ultra-nationalist lawmaker who steadily phases provocative visits to Palestinian spaces, attended the rally and used to be greeted with cheers. He’s a disciple of a thorough rabbi whose violently anti-Arab ideology used to be as soon as refrained from in Israel however is now having a revival.
Israeli High Minister Naftali Bennett mentioned in a commentary that he would bar Ben Gvir from going to Damascus Gate. “I don’t intend to permit petty politics to hazard human lives,” he mentioned.
Remaining Would possibly, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired rockets towards Jerusalem as a far better staff of 1000’s of Israelis held a flag march to the Outdated Town following weeks of protests and clashes in and round Al-Aqsa. The ones occasions resulted in an 11-day battle between Israel and Hamas.
Israeli nationalists level such marches to take a look at to say sovereignty over east Jerusalem, which Israel seized within the 1967 Mideast battle, at the side of the West Financial institution and Gaza, and annexed in a transfer no longer identified the world over. The Palestinians search an impartial state in all 3 territories and imagine east Jerusalem their capital.
Organizer Noam Nisan defended the march in an interview with Kan public radio prior to it used to be held, announcing: “A Jew with a flag in Jerusalem isn’t a provocation.”
He mentioned the demonstration used to be a reaction to Palestinians pelting buses with stones simply out of doors the Outdated Town previous this week. The assault came about close to an front resulting in the Western Wall, the holiest website online the place Jews can pray, which is subsequent to Al-Aqsa.
Related Press author Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem contributed to this record.
