Thousands of Israelis have joined a state-funded march through the Muslim quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem, where large groups chanted racist slogans including “Gaza is ours”, “death to the Arabs” and “may their villages burn”.

The annual march, paid for and promoted by the Jerusalem city government, celebrates Israel’s capture and occupation of East Jerusalem and its holy sites in the war of 1967. The Israeli takeover is not recognised internationally.

The Jerusalem municipality advertises the event, known as the flag march, as a “festive procession”, part of a broader programme of events celebrating the “liberation” of the city.

The march has been marred by racism and attacks on Palestinians for years, and is preceded by a campaign of violence in the Old City that in effect shuts down Palestinian majority areas, particularly in the Muslim Quarter.

From before midday on Monday small groups of young Israeli men attacked and harassed shopkeepers and passersby inside the city, spitting at women in hijabs, stealing from cafes, ransacking a bookshop and entering at least one home by force.

“Shut now, or I can’t protect you,” a police officer told cafe owner Raymond Himo, when he protested about teenagers in religious Zionist dress stealing drinks. On Monday, shops had mostly closed by 1pm, hours earlier than in previous years, with residents barricaded in their homes.

Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher with the Ir Amim non-profit that works for an equitable Jerusalem, said: “It deprives people of their economic livelihood, makes them feel unsafe in their surroundings. Symbolically it sends a message: ‘You don’t belong here, we are the ones who own this place.’”

From midday, groups of Jewish men inside the city shouted racist chants including “may their villages burn”, “Mohammed is dead” and “death to Arabs”.

Those slogans were picked by larger groups of mostly men that began arriving in the late afternoon. Women approached the Western Wall on a separate march, which is largely divided by gender for religious reasons.

One large group arriving at the Damascus Gate chanted “Gaza is ours”, and carried a large banner reading “Jerusalem 1967, Gaza 2025”, in effect threatening full military annexation of the strip to echo the capture of East Jerusalem.

Another banner read a “without a Nakba there is no victory”, referring to the forcible expulsion of about 700,000 Palestinians when the state of Israel was created in 1948.

The procession is coordinated by “Am K’Lavi”, a non-profit whose only activity is organising the flag day march. It is chaired by Baruch Kahane, the son of Meir Kahane, a Jewish supremacist Rabbi who founded the Kach party. Banned as a political party in Israel in the 1980s under anti-terror legislation, it is now a far-right movement.

Some marchers wore T-shirts with the party’s symbol of a clenched fist in a star of David. Others wore shirts with the names of their high schools, which had organised group outings to the march.

Despite the history of violence at the march there was a relatively light police presence inside the Old City, and they did little to protect many of the Palestinians targeted with violence.

Activists from the group Standing Together, who stood as human shields in front of attackers protected only by purple gilets identifying them as members were often the only barrier preventing the violence escalating.

The far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was among the crowds arriving at the Old City around sunset. He had earlier made an inflammatory trip to pray at al-Aqsa mosque in its compound, where officially Israel does not permit Jewish believers to carry out religious rituals.

The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hosted a cabinet meeting in Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem. He ignored warnings from the Shin Bet security service that it would be an inflammatory move, Israeli media reported.

The flag march is already seen as a violent and deeply provocative expression of Jewish control of Jerusalem, which has in the past triggered broader conflict. Violence at the same event helped spark the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2021.

Danny Seidemann, an Israeli attorney specialising in the geopolitics of Jerusalem, described Netanyahu’s cabinet meeting as political “pyromania”.

“The ridge to the south of the ramparts of the Old City, literally in the shadow of the Old City, is indeed the location of biblical Jerusalem. But it is also a contemporary Palestinian neighbourhood,” Seidemann said.

“The past is being weaponised by biblically motivated settlers to displace Palestinians, demolish their homes and recreate their vision of a renewed pseudo-ancient Israel. This is the site, the most contested and volatile in Jerusalem, is where Netanyahu has decided to ‘celebrate’.”

(AP) — Israeli strikes killed at least 52 people in the Gaza Strip on Monday, including 36 in a school-turned-shelter that was struck as people slept, setting their belongings ablaze, according to local health officials. The military said it targeted militants operating from the school.

Israel renewed its offensive in March after ending a ceasefire with Hamas. It has vowed to seize full control of Gaza and keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed, and until the militant group returns the remaining 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, from the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.

Israel began allowing a trickle of humanitarian aid into Gaza last week after blocking all food, medicine, fuel or other goods from entering for 2 1/2 months. Aid groups have warned of famine and say the aid that has entered is nowhere near enough to meeting mounting needs.

A new aid system supported by Israel and the United States but rejected by U.N. agencies and aid groups was expected to begin operations as soon as Monday, despite the resignation of the American leading the effort, who said it would not be able to operate independently.

Israel says it plans to facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of Gaza’s over 2 million population, a plan rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community. Hamas warned Palestinians on Monday not to cooperate with the new aid system, saying it is aimed at furthering those objectives.

Israel’s military campaign has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced some 90% of its population. Many have fled multiple times.

Ultranationalists march in east Jerusalem, break into UN compound

In a separate development, ultranationalist Israelis gathered in Jerusalem for an annual procession marking Israel’s 1967 conquest of the city’s eastern sector. Some protesters chanted “Death to Arabs” and harassed Palestinian residents.

A small group, including a member of parliament, broke into the east Jerusalem compound of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, which Israel has banned. The UNRWA compound has been mostly empty since January, when staff were asked to stay away for security reasons.

There was no immediate comment from Israeli police.

Rescuers recover charred remains

The strike on the school in Gaza City’s Daraj neighborhood also wounded dozens of people, said Fahmy Awad, head of the Health Ministry’s emergency service. He said a father and his five children were among the dead. The Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals confirmed the overall toll.

Awad said the school was hit three times while people slept. Footage online showed rescuers struggling to extinguish fires and recovering charred remains.

Israel’s military said it targeted a command center inside the school that Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants used to gather intelligence for attacks. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in residential areas.

A separate strike on a home in Jabaliya in northern Gaza killed 16 members of a family, including five women and two children, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies.

Palestinian militants, meanwhile, fired three projectiles from Gaza. Two fell short within the territory and a third was intercepted, according to Israel’s military.

Official involved in Israel-backed aid plan resigns

Israel plans to roll out a new aid distribution system run by a group known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, made up of former humanitarian, government and military officials, that would set up distribution points guarded by private security firms.

Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off assistance, without providing evidence. The foundation said in a statement it would begin delivering aid Monday and would reach a million Palestinians — around half of Gaza’s population — by the end of the week.

U.N. agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the system, saying it would force more displacement, fail to meet needs and violate humanitarian principles that prohibit a warring party from controlling humanitarian assistance. They also say there is no evidence of systematic diversion of aid by militants.

Jake Wood, the American heading the foundation, resigned Sunday, saying it had become clear the foundation would not be allowed to operate independently. It’s not clear who funds the group.

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the 2023 attack. More than half the hostages have been returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals, eight have been rescued and Israeli forces have recovered the remains of dozens more.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed around 54,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It says more than half the dead are women and children but does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to shelter in schools and squalid tent camps for well over a year.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of ultranationalist Israelis marched through a sensitive Palestinian area of Jerusalem on Wednesday in an annual procession, chanting racist slogans as the country’s far-right national security minister boasted that Jews had prayed freely at a key holy site in the city in violation of decades-old understandings.

The comments by Itamar Ben-Gvir and the march in Jerusalem, the emotional heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, threatened to stoke already high tensions that have gripped the region since the start of the war in Gaza. The annual march, seen by Palestinians as provocative, helped set off an 11-day war in Gaza three years ago.

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Marchers convening outside the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, a central gathering place for Palestinians in east Jerusalem, chanted “Death to Arabs” and other anti-Arab and anti-Islamic slogans. They danced and waved Israeli flags as the procession kicked off.

Israeli nationalists celebrate their annual march in the Old City of Jerusalem on June 5, 2024. Attendees chanted racist slogans while marching through the sensitive Palestinian area of the city, as far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir boasted that Jews prayed freely at a key holy site in violation of decades-old understandings. Amir Levy via Getty Images

Ben-Gvir, who was once on the fringes of Israeli politics but now holds a key position in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, had insisted that the march follow its traditional route through the Palestinian area, despite tensions surging because of the war. Marchers entered the Muslim Quarter of the Old City through Damascus Gate and ended at the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray.

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The police stressed that the march would not enter the sprawling Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam. The hilltop on which it stands is the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of the Jewish temples in antiquity.

But activists said hundreds of Jews had visited the compound earlier in the day, and Ben-Gvir said they prayed there freely, following what he said was his own policy that permitted prayer there.

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir participates in the ultranationalist march through a sensitive Palestinian area of Jerusalem on June 5, 2024. Ben-Gvir boasted that Jews had prayed freely at a key holy site in the city, in violation of decades-old understandings. Amir Levy via Getty Images

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Since Israel captured the site in 1967, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there. Perceived encroachments on the site have set off widespread violence on a number of occasions going back decades.

“Jews prayed on the Temple Mount. This is the minister’s policy,” Ben-Gvir told the Galey Israel radio station.

Netanyahu said there had been no change to the understandings at the holy site that prevented Jewish prayer there.

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Ben-Gvir has long called for greater Jewish access to the holy site and has visited it repeatedly as a minister. Palestinians consider the mosque a national symbol and view such visits as provocative and as a potential precursor to Israel seizing control over the compound. Most rabbis forbid Jews from praying on the site, but there has been a growing movement in recent years of Jews who support worship there.

The annual march commemorates “Jerusalem Day,” which marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital, but its annexation of east Jerusalem is not internationally recognized. The Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, see the march as a provocation.

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Just before the march began, crowds scuffled with police and threw plastic bottles at a journalist wearing a vest with the word PRESS emblazoned on it. Police said they arrested 18 marchers “on suspicion of violent crimes, assault and threats and disorderly conduct.”

Israeli nationalists attack a journalist during their annual march through a sensitive Palestinian area of Jerusalem on June 5, 2024. Amir Levy via Getty Images

Police said they deployed 3,000 security personnel to ensure calm and were seen arresting several Palestinian men before the march got underway, leading them away with their hands bound behind their backs.

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Ben-Gvir said the march sent a message to Hamas.

“We are delivering a message from here to Hamas: Jerusalem is ours. Damascus Gate is ours,” he told marchers at the start of the rally. “And with God’s help total victory is ours,” Ben-Gvir said, referring to the war in Gaza, which he has demanded that Israel continue until Hamas is defeated.

Commenting on the march, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said “our people will not rest until the occupation is gone and an independent Palestinian state is established, with Jerusalem as its capital.”

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The march was taking place as tensions over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza are high. The war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel responded with a massive offensive that has killed over 36,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, displaced most of the territory’s population and caused widespread destruction.

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