Israeli nationalist demonstrators chanted \u201cDeath to the Arabs\u201d, \u201cMay your villages burn\u201d and \u201cGaza is a graveyard\u201d in a state-sponsored march through Jerusalem to mark the anniversary of the city\u2019s capture and annexation.<\/p>\n
The annual assertion of Jewish control over Palestinian East Jerusalem has grown more extreme in recent years, and Thursday\u2019s event culminated with the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, unfurling an Israeli flag in front of the al-Aqsa mosque, the holiest Islamic site in the city.<\/p>\n
Most Palestinians in the Muslim quarter of the Old City had shuttered their shops and gone home before the march began, but members of radical Jewish groups who had entered scuffled with Palestinian residents still there, with both sides throwing chairs at each other, until separated by policewho entered the city that afternoon in force.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve come to show all the world that this is our city. This is the Holy Land. God gave us this country and this city,\u201d a 19-year-old marcher, Ariel Amichai, said.<\/p>\n
Asked what the intended message of the march was to Palestinians in Jerusalem, he replied: \u201cThat they must leave. This is our country. And they can\u2019t just be here and try to stab us or kill us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amichai, who is from Modi\u2019in, 43km from Jerusalem, said he believed that Jerusalem Day, marking the capture of the east side of the city in 1967, was the only day when Jews could enter the Muslim quarter through the Damascus Gate, though Israeli Jews and Palestinians use the gate on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
Marchers were bused in from around Israel and from settlements in the occupied West Bank<\/a> in a vast operation funded by the Jerusalem municipality and government ministries. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, also took part in Thursday\u2019s march.<\/p>\n People gather at the Western Wall Plaza, Judaism\u2019s holiest prayer site, during the annual Jerusalem Day celebration. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun\/Reuters<\/p>\n Once Palestinians had left the Old City, much of the tension was between government-backed marchers and members of a Jewish group, Standing Together<\/a>, which had come to protect Palestinian residents from political violence.<\/p>\n Suf Patishi, a Standing Together organiser, said a record 400 volunteers had turned up in hi-vis vests in the organisation\u2019s trademark purple, on a day fraught with risks.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to really cover each and every corner of the city to make sure that we prevent attacks against Palestinians,\u201d Patishi said. \u201cYes, it is dangerous to us, but nothing like the danger to the Palestinians that are living here.\u201d<\/p>\n There were a few religious Jews among the protective cordon of counter-protesters. An ultra-orthodox man with a long grey beard and gold coat said he had come from northern Israel and gave his name only as David.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve become appalled by the violent behaviour of people in my community,\u201d David said. \u201cI\u2019m a man of faith, religious, and they\u2019re doing this in our name, and I felt I should do something to contrast that. This is a desecration of God\u2019s name, so the only way to remedy that is to do the opposite, a Kiddush Hashem, a sanctification of God\u2019s name.\u201d<\/p>\n