Jerusalem — Monday’s annual Jerusalem Day procession drew far-right Israelis chanting slurs and attacking Palestinians.
Throughout the celebration, which honors Israeli forces occupying the Palestinian-majority East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, chants of “death to Arabs” and nationalistic slogans were repeated.
As ultranationalist Jews flooded Palestinian parts of Jerusalem’s walled Old City, violence erupted.
Opposing Leader Yair Lapid claimed the gathering was “a disgrace and an insult to Judaism” and had evolved into a celebration of “hatred and racism”.
Shortly after lunchtime, Israeli police were sent in as rioting erupted in the walled Old City of Occupied East Jerusalem.
One of the main gateways, Damascus Gate, was inundated with thousands of nationalist Israeli descended. “67 — Jerusalem in our hands; 2025 — Gaza in our hands” placards carried by right-wing demonstrators
Young Israeli men reportedly harassed Arab traders in the Muslim Quarter who had not closed their stores.
The march echoed chants of “May your village burn” and “Your home will be ours”.
Israeli police arrested and hauled off aggressive demonstrators from the Old City.
Speaking to the throngs, national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir of the Jewish Power party advocated the death sentence for “terrorists”.
The parade mark Israel’s seizure of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and the “unification” of a city the Israeli government claims to be their permanent capital.
Jerusalem is also wanted by Palestinians as their future capital; most of the world community sees East Jerusalem as Israeli-occupied Palestinian land.
This year’s Flag March once more coincided with the conflict in Gaza and increasing Israeli military operations against Palestinian militants in the West Bank.
In reaction to Hamas’s cross-border incursion on October 7, 2023, in which over 1,200 people were killed and 251 more were kidnapped, Israel started a military operation in Gaza. There are still fifty-seven held; roughly twenty of them are thought to be alive.
The territory’s health ministry estimates that at least 53,939 people—including at least 16,500 children—have died in Gaza since then.
