The China Mail - Scuffles, insults as Israelis celebrate Jerusalem Day under shadow of Gaza war

Jerusalem Day, as the celebrations are known, commemorates Israeli forces taking Palestinian-majority east Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem, including the annexed east, its indivisible capital. The international community does not recognise this, and Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

Far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir on Monday visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, to mark the occasion, which was being held for a second year under the shadow of the war in Gaza.

"I ascended to the Temple Mount for Jerusalem Day, and prayed for victory in the war" and the return of hostages held in Gaza, said the national security minister, whose past visits to the site have sparked anger among Palestinians and their supporters.

The Al-Aqsa mosque is Islam's third-holiest and a symbol of Palestinian national identity.

The location is also Judaism's holiest place, though Jews are forbidden from praying there.

Every year, thousands of Israeli nationalists, many of them religious Jews, march through Jerusalem and its annexed Old City, including in predominantly Palestinian neighbourhoods, waving Israeli flags, dancing and sometimes shouting inflammatory slogans.

- 'Our one and only holy city' -

The route ends at the Western Wall, the last remnant of the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, the holiest site where Jews are allowed to pray.

"After so many years that the people of Israel were not here in Jerusalem and in the land of Israel, we arrived here and conquered Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall," said 21-year-old Yeshiva student Yosef Azoulai.

"So we celebrate this day in which we won over all our enemies, and we're here now thanking God for this great miracle."

Groups of youths, some carrying Israeli flags, were seen confronting Palestinian shopkeepers, passersby and schoolchildren, as well as Israeli rights activists and police, at times spitting on people, lobbing insults and trying to force their way into houses.

Police detained at least two youths, according to AFP journalists at the scene.

A few tourists in the Old City, whose sites are revered by three Abrahamic faiths, continued to venture through its narrow alleyways as tour guides urged caution and moved quickly past shuttered stalls.

Outside the Old City, former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin was advertising his far-right political party Identity.

"Every nation and every religion has its capital, its national capital, its spiritual capital but for some reason, all the nations want a part of our one and only holy city," he said.

"Jerusalem belongs to the Jews and only to the Jews," he added.

This year's Jerusalem Day comes amid renewed calls by some Israeli right-wing figures to annex Palestinian territory.

On Monday, the Israeli army said three projectiles were launched from Gaza, two falling inside the territory and one intercepted.

In 2021, Hamas launched rockets towards Jerusalem as marchers approached the Old City, sparking a 12-day war and outbreaks of violence in Israel between Jews and Arabs.

- A 'different kind of Jerusalem' -

Authorities sometimes order Palestinian shops in the Old City to shut, though business owners this year said they had mostly closed down out of fear of confrontations.

Shopkeepers also told AFP police had warned them not to speak to journalists.

At a counter-event in the morning, peace activists handed out flowers to challenge what they saw as the main march's divisive message.

Orly Likhovski of the Israel Religious Action Center said those taking part in the peace event were "not willing to accept that this day is marked by violence and racism", adding they hoped to represent "a Jewish voice for a different kind of Jerusalem".

Some Palestinians accepted the flowers.

But one elderly man near Damascus Gate politely refused, saying: "Do you see what is happening in Gaza? I'm sorry, but I cannot accept."

Later, Israeli teenage marchers were seen tearing up flowers and tossing them into the air.

In a rare move, the Israeli cabinet met nearby in the predominantly Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan, home to an archaeological site known as the City of David -- believed to mark the location of ancient Jerusalem during biblical times.

At the meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "keep Jerusalem united, whole, and under Israeli sovereignty".

Since June 1967, Israeli settlement in the eastern part of the city -- considered illegal under international law -- has expanded, drawing regular international criticism.

M.Chau--ThChM