Dozens of Jewish youth who arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday fought with Palestinians in the Old City, ahead of the controversial annual Jerusalem Day march.
Haaretz reports that the police broke up the clashes with no casulties.
Hundred of Jewish nationalists, including development minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, reportedly entered the Al-Aqsa compound on Wednesday morning, according to Haaretz.
Some individuals were arrested after attempting to pray, a prohibited act for Israelis in Islam’s third most sacred site.
The so-called Jerusalem Day flag march commemorates the Israeli army’s capture of the city’s eastern sector in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Thousands of mainly religious nationalists parade through predominantly Arab neighborhoods of the Old City, waving national flags, dancing and occasionally shouting racist slogans.
Police set up barriers near the Damascus Gate entrance after announcing plans to deploy more than 3,000 officers during the day, an AFP correspondent reported.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said on Tuesday that he and fellow marchers intended to march to the super-sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound, where they are allowed to visit at certain times but not to pray.
“We will march tomorrow through the Damascus Gate and Jews will go onto the Temple Mount,” Ben Gvir told the army radio.
For many Palestinians, the route through predominantly Arab neighborhoods is seen as a deliberate provocation. The Palestinians claim the city’s eastern sector as the capital of their future state.
The police said that they were deploying officers throughout the city to “maintain public order, safety and secure property, as well as direct traffic” during the march.
The police typically forces the closure of Palestinian businesses near the march route and keeps Palestinian residents away.
In 2021, Hamas launched a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem as the march began, triggering a 12-day conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group that also saw Jewish-Arab violence in Israeli cities.
With AFP
