OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Thousands of Israelis on Sunday attended the
annual nationalist “flag march” through occupied
Jerusalem, waving Israeli
flags and singing songs as they passed through the narrow streets of the Old
City’s Muslim quarter, according to Al Jazeera.
اضافة اعلان
The flag march
takes place on Israel’s “Jerusalem Day”, celebrating the illegal occupation and
annexation of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Parading settlers
crossed the
Damascus gate and marched through the main thoroughfare in
Jerusalem’s Old City on their way to the Western Wall, protected by Israeli
forces — some 2,000 police were deployed for the event, AFP reported.
Palestinian
businesses along the route were forced to close.
During the march,
settlers chanted racist and other slogans calling for the death of Arabs,
according to the
Palestinian news agency, Wafa.
Across annexed East
Jerusalem, many Palestinian flags flew from rooftops in protest of the
nationalist march. A video, which went viral on Sunday, showed a drone carrying
a Palestinian flag above the Damascus Gate during the march.
At least 24
Palestinians were injured in attacks by Israeli occupation forces and settlers
in Jerusalem during the march.
The
Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Jerusalem reported that its crews dealt with at least 24
cases, including injuries from being shot by rubber-coated metal bullets,
beatings, and pepper spray.
Eight people were
taken to hospitals, it said.
Palestinian Prime
Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on Sunday condemned the flag march and Israeli
attacks on Palestinian citizens.
Settlers storm Al-Aqsa
Earlier on Sunday, hundreds of far-right Jewish nationalists entered the
Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, including settlers led by the leader of a small
ultranationalist opposition party in Israel’s parliament, MK Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The settlers were
reportedly confronted by a handful of Palestinian worshipers who held a night
vigil inside the compound in an attempt to foil the Israeli raids into the holy
site.
According to
eyewitnesses speaking to Wafa, an elderly Palestinian man was assaulted by
Israeli forces and expelled from the site. At least 18 Palestinians were
arrested within the Old City, according to Israeli forces.
An Al Jazeera
correspondent said that Palestinian journalists and photographers were
prevented from entering the compound and threatened with arrest.
The spokesperson
for
President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said that Israel was
irresponsibly and recklessly playing with fire by allowing settlers to
desecrate the holy sites in occupied Jerusalem and by escalating the killing of
Palestinians.
Shtayyeh called on
the international community and all international human rights and humanitarian
organizations to intervene urgently to stop the violations against the holy
places in the city of Jerusalem and to activate international resolutions to
impose sanctions on all violations committed by Israel.
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