- By Tom Bateman
- BBC News, Jerusalem
May 18, 2023 1:11 PM BST
Updated 55 minutes ago
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Outside the Damascus Gate, a crowd threw stones, sticks and bottles at journalists and chanted racist slogans
Thousands of Israeli nationalists marched into the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, using violence against media outlets covering the event.
The flag parade is part of Israel’s Jerusalem Day and marks the capture of the city’s east in the 1967 war.
A group of protesters threw stones, sticks and bottles at Palestinian and foreign journalists at the entrance to the Damascus Gate.
They also cheered and chanted racist slogans, including “Death to the Arabs”.
Far-right Israeli cabinet ministers have joined the procession. One of them, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, declared: “Jerusalem is ours forever.”
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Palestinian journalists used a wooden door as a shield
Palestinians along the route in occupied East Jerusalem had previously closed their homes and businesses over fears of abuse.
For Jewish ultranationalists, the march has increasingly become a show of force, while for Palestinians it is seen as a blatant provocation, eroding their ties to the city.
Racist, anti-Arab chants are often shouted by nationalist demonstrators. The event has sparked much greater violence in the past.
Israeli police have vowed to stop lawbreakers but blame regional “terrorist elements” for “frantic incitement” to the march on social media. They also said it was just “a small minority on both sides”. [who] try to agitate”.
Palestinian Authority leaders called the events in East Jerusalem a “provocative act” and said far-right cabinet ministers Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich – staunch supporters of the parade – were “sowing the seeds of conflict”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the event would go ahead as planned and police said it would take place along the traditional route.
Along the route in the Old City, Samir Abu Sbeih lowered the shutters of his candy store and said police had advised Palestinian businesses to do so by mid-afternoon.
“It’s not their country to celebrate,” he said of the march. “We live under occupation and therefore we have to accept it.”
Doner kebab restaurant owner Basti, who declined to give his full name, said the event had gotten “worse” over the years.
“People, when they dance with the flag, sometimes they try to put the flag in your face, sometimes they spit in your face. And that’s not nice.”
He said police told him he would not be forced to close, but that he would keep his business open at his own risk, he said.
“For me, I just want to be inside. I don’t like problems, on both sides,” he said.
Jerusalem Day events have been celebrated by Israelis for decades, but in recent years parts of the route have been the focus of increasing tension.
In the late afternoon, tens of thousands of Israelis make their way from West Jerusalem to the Old City, ending with a so-called flag dance at the Western Wall, the holiest site of Jewish prayer.
Before that, the protesters go their separate ways and thousands, mostly men and teenagers, move to East Jerusalem.
You’ll pass through the Damascus Gate, which Israeli forces usually clear of Palestinians in advance, and then into the Muslim Quarter of the Old City.
In recent years groups of protesters have chanted “Death to the Arabs” and “May your village burn” while others slammed the shutters of Palestinian shops.
One of the protesters, Pini, who declined to give his last name, said he had been there for decades to mark the day when “Jerusalem was reunited and returned to the hands of the Jewish people.”
“From 1948 to 1967, we were denied access to the Western Wall,” he said, referring to the period when East Jerusalem was under Jordanian control. “We have returned to the Western Wall,” he added.
When asked about the threatening atmosphere for the Palestinians, he replied that he rejected any form of harassment. But he echoed the highly controversial comments made earlier this year by a far-right minister, adding: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people; when was Palestine founded? Is there a Palestinian king? Is there a Palestinian currency?”
The Palestinian militant group Hamas warned Israel this week that it would reignite the conflict if it crossed “red lines” during the event in Jerusalem.
On the day of the flag march in 2021, the group fired rockets at Jerusalem from the Gaza Strip as a week of seething tensions culminated in war.
However, so far this year, with another round of conflict between Israel and Gaza militants ending just last weekend, the appetite for escalation seems to be less.