JERUSALEM (news agencies) — Chanting “Death to Arabs” and singing “May your village burn,” groups of young Israeli Jews made their way through Muslim neighborhoods of Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday during an annual march marking Israel’s conquest of the eastern part of the city.
Palestinian shopkeepers closed early and police lined the alleys ahead of the march that often becomes a rowdy and sometimes violent procession of ultranationalist Jews. A police officer raised his arms in celebration at one point, hugging a marcher. It was blazing hot, with temperatures hitting 98 degrees Fahrenheit (37 Celsius) in late afternoon.
Police kept a close watch as demonstrators jumped, danced and sang.
Hours earlier, a small group of protesters, including an Israeli member of parliament, stormed a compound in east Jerusalem belonging to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.
The march commemorates Jerusalem Day, which marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war. The event threatened to inflame tensions that are rife in the city after nearly 600 days of war in Gaza.
Jerusalem lies at the heart of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Each sees the city as a key part of their national and religious identity. It is one of the most intractable issues of the conflict and is often a flashpoint.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its eternal, undivided capital. Its annexation of east Jerusalem is not internationally recognized. Palestinians want an independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital.
Last year’s procession, during the first year of the war in Gaza, saw ultranationalist Israelis attack a Palestinian journalist in the Old City and call for violence against Palestinians. Four years ago, the march helped set off an 11-day war in Gaza.
Tour buses carrying young ultranationalist Jews lined up near entrances to the Old City, bringing hundreds from outside Jerusalem, including settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
After this year’s march ended, Arab shopkeepers darted outside to begin scrubbing their shops, now covered with stickers reading “Gaza is ours.”
Police, who called the procession the “Dance of Flags,” said they had detained a number of people and “acted swiftly to prevent violence, confrontations and provocations.”
Speaking in an east Jerusalem archaeological park located in a Palestinian neighborhood, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to “preserve a united, whole Jerusalem, and the sovereignty of Israel.” He said the government was encouraging foreign embassies to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and investing billions of shekels in the city’s development.
Volunteers from the pro-peace organization Standing Together and the Free Jerusalem collective, which works with Palestinians in Jerusalem, tried to position themselves between the marchers and residents to prevent violence.
One shopkeeper swept the floor after marchers tipped over his bale of bay leaves. A group of young Jewish Israelis followed a Palestinian woman through the streets, calling her “charmouta” — Arabic for “whore.”
“This is our home, this is our state,” one protester shouted at a Palestinian woman.
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