[ad_1]
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Israelis dance with flags by Damascus gate simply exterior Jerusalem’s Previous Metropolis June 15, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/File Photograph
By Crispian Balmer
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Flag-waving Jewish nationalists are set to march via the center of the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Previous Metropolis on Sunday in a parade that would re-ignite violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
The annual Jerusalem procession celebrates Israel’s seize of the Previous Metropolis within the 1967 Center East struggle and attracts hundreds of cheering, chanting individuals to its slim, stone streets.
However for Palestinians, the march is a blatant provocation and a violation of one of many few locations within the metropolis, more and more hemmed in by Jewish improvement and settlement, which retains a powerful Arab flavour.
Hamas, the Islamist group that guidelines the Gaza Strip, fired rockets into Israel at first of final yr’s procession, triggering an 11-day struggle that left a whole bunch useless.
On Saturday, the group issued a press release calling for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Financial institution and Jerusalem, together with Israel’s Arab minority, who’re Palestinian by heritage and Israeli by citizenship, “to stand up on Sunday to defend Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque”.
However regardless of requires a rethink of the march from a few of his personal coalition allies, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has to this point refused to countenance any adjustments.
“The flag parade shall be held as ordinary in line with the deliberate route, because it has been for many years,” his workplace mentioned on Friday, including that it will overview the state of affairs frequently via the approaching hours.
Jerusalem and its holy websites, revered by Muslims, Jews and Christians alike, lie on the coronary heart of many years of Israeli-Palestinian battle.
Israel sees all of Jerusalem as its everlasting and indivisible capital whereas Palestinians need the jap part as capital of their future state. Hamas, deemed a terrorist organisation by Western governments, sees all of modern-day Israel as occupied.
Tensions have been rising within the metropolis for weeks.
Repeated clashes occurred between Palestinians and Israeli police within the Al-Aqsa compound in April, throughout the holy month of Ramadan, with Muslims angered by rising numbers of Jewish guests to the mosque esplanade.
Al-Aqsa is the third holiest web site in Islam. It’s also revered by Jews because the Temple Mount – a vestige of their religion’s two historical temples.
Sunday’s march is because of culminate on the Western Wall, a Jewish prayer web site that sits beneath the Al-Aqsa mosques.
[ad_2]
Source link