May 27, 2025 1:05:26 am
Chanting “Death to Arabs” and singing “May your village burn,” groups of young Israeli Jews made their way through Muslim neighborhoods of Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday ahead of an annual march marking Israel’s conquest of the eastern part of the city.
The 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. The event, set to begin later in the day, threatens to inflame tensions that are already rife in the restive city amid nearly 600 days of war in Gaza.
Jerusalem lies at the heart of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, who each see the city as a key part of their national and religious identity. It is one of the most intractable issues of the conflict and often emerges as a flashpoint.
Last year’s procession, which came during the first year of the war in Gaza, saw ultranationalist Israelis attack a Palestinian journalist in the Old City and call for violence against Palestinians. Four years ago, the march helped set off an 11-day war in Gaza.
Tour buses carrying young ultranationalist Jews lined up near entrances to the Old City, bringing hundreds from outside Jerusalem, including settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
ULTRA-EXTREME: Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the country’s police force, visited a flashpoint hilltop compound holy to Jews and Muslims, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located today. One Israeli lawmaker, Yitzhak Kroizer, could be seen praying.
Perceived encroachments by Jews on the site have set off widespread violence on a number of occasions going back decades.
“We are marking a holiday for Jerusalem,” Ben-Gvir said at the site, accompanied by other lawmakers and a rabbi. “There are truly many Jews flooding the Temple Mount. How nice to see that.”
Beyadenu, an activist group that encourages Jewish visits to the site, said dozens of people had ascended to the holy compound draped in the Israeli flag, and had prayed there.
Since Israel captured the site in 1967, a tenuous understanding between Israeli and Muslim religious authorities at the compound has allowed Jews — who revere the site as the Temple Mount, the location of the biblical temples — to visit but not pray there.
NORMALISING EXTREMISM: Ben-Gvir says he is changing that status quo. Palestinians already say it has long been eroding because of an increase in Jewish visits to the site.
“Today, thank God, it is possible to pray on the Temple Mount,” Ben-Gvir said at the site.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there has been no change to the status quo. Police said that Monday’s march would not enter the site.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its eternal, undivided capital. Its annexation of east Jerusalem is not internationally recognised. Palestinians want an independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital.
For many in Israel, Jerusalem Day is a joyous occasion that marks a moment of redemption in their country’s history, when access to the key Jewish holy site of the Western Wall was restored and the city was unified. But over recent years, the Jerusalem Day march in the city has become dominated by young nationalist and religious Israelis and on some occasions has descended into violence. – France24.
UNWAVERING SUPPORT: US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Sunday evening, according to the prime minister’s office. Noem expressed “unwavering support” for Israel and “great appreciation” for Netanyahu’s “conduct of the war,” the prime minister’s office said.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff has told CNN that a ceasefire-hostage deal for Gaza is currently on the table with a pathway to end the war, and urged Hamas to accept it.
The proposal comes at a crucial point in the war, as the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for most of southern Gaza ahead of what its spokesperson said would be an “unprecedented attack” on the territory.
An Israeli military official told CNN on Monday that Israel plans to occupy 75% of Gaza within two months as part of its new offensive.
If carried out, the plan would force more than two million Palestinians into a quarter of the coastal enclave, surrounded on nearly all sides by Israeli forces. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this month the entire population would be displaced to southern Gaza.
The IDF now has five divisions operating in Gaza, the military said Friday, totaling tens of thousands of troops.
600 DAYS OF DEATH: Featured image of an ‘unlicensed’ Palestinian house being demolished in the West Bank – 26 May. Settlers have used the ongoing war as an excuse to confiscate farms from Palestinians, often with the support of the military. Starving children in Gaza due to Israel’s blockade 1 March – 26 May. Issues with humanitarian aid entering Gaza started as far back as January 2024. Israeli settlers have repeatedly attacked aid convoys during the entirety of the war.
We are almost at Day 600 of this brutal conflict. Israel is turning into a techno-military-religious fascist state in order to control the ‘Holy’ land. Overwhelming force has become the norm, which in turn will only deepen resentment and further fuel violence, payback, retribution and hate.