Israeli security forces were preparing for the possibility of clashes on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Sunday, ahead of the controversial flag march ofr Jerusalem Day.
Channel 12 reported Saturday, without citing sources, that security officials fear Palestinian rioters will barricade themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, and hurl stones and other items at officers and Jewish worshipers as they head onto the compound on Sunday morning.
Security forces were also preparing for possible violence in the West Bank, possible rocket fire from Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip and even an attack by Iran proxy Hezbollah along the northern border with Lebanon.
As it stands, controversial far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben Gvir will be allowed by police to visit the Temple Mount on Sunday. Police believe that while Ben Gvir’s visit could lead to a significant escalation, any consequent clashes could be contained and controlled, Haaretz reported Friday.
Later Sunday, the Jerusalem Day flag march will take place in and around the Old City. Marchers are set to walk along Jaffa Street to Damascus Gate, where access will be blocked for Palestinians. They will continue into the Old City through Hagai Street in the Muslim Quarter and finish at the Western Wall.
This is the traditional route for the annual march, which the Palestinians consider a provocation.
MK Itamar Ben Gvir attends a march by right-wing activists through Jerusalem’s Old City, April 20, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Jerusalem Day, which marks Israel’s conquest of the Old City and East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War, is celebrated by national-religious Jews, most prominently by youths who march through the capital while dancing with Israeli flags.
Israeli authorities altered the route of the 2021 march an hour before it was set to be held following Hamas threats and high tensions for weeks. Police fanned out across the Old City in an attempt to prevent Israeli marchers from reaching Damascus Gate.
Organizers then declared the cancellation of the event but hundreds of participants streamed into the Old City. Shortly thereafter, Hamas launched a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem in what ended up kicking off an 11-day Gaza War.
Senior military officials in the Israel Defense Forces’ Gaza Division told leaders of communities along the border with the Strip that they do not expect an escalation similar to last year’s, Channel 13 news reported on the eve of celebrations.
View of the barrier along the Israel-Gaza border, on December 8, 2021. (Flash90)
However, Palestinian terror groups including Hamas warned on Saturday of an “explosion” ahead of the controversial flag march.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said earlier this week that “the Palestinian people, led by the resistance — especially those in the West Bank and Jerusalem — will not permit this Jewish, Talmudic rubbish to go unanswered.”
According to Channel 12 Saturday, Hamas was currently at odds with terror groups in the Strip over a response to the march in Jerusalem, with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others favoring rocket assaults on Israel.
Meanwhile, prominent Israeli political and religious figures have sought to emphasize that the flag march and its route into the Muslim Quarter were not new and that the fragile status quo on the Temple Mount will not change.
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked criticized on Saturday what she believed to be “attempts to blur the nationalist meaning of the day” with religion and extremism.
“This is not a sectarian day but a national day,” she said, calling on parents to celebrate the day with their children.
Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion said in a video on Ynet that the march has taken place for many years. He said participants in the march itself “will do this without hurting people from other religions.”
Rabbi Yaakov Shapira, head of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem, explained in the video that the march was founded in his yeshiva, by the late Rabbi Yehuda Hazani. “His intention was to express the connection between the new city to the old city, between Jerusalem that was destroyed to the [re]built Jerusalem.”
Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, a Ramat Gan-based rabbi and prominent religious Zionist thinker stated that the march of the flags is meant to bring “happiness and respect,” and called on those with an intention to harm others not to participate.
In a video posted in Arabic, Major General Ghassan Alian, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) urged Palestinians not to believe the misinformation campaign, explaining that the march had taken place for more than 30 years, and was “not new.”
Meanwhile, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz told Channel 12 on Saturday that it was a “mistake” to march through the volatile Damascus Gate, criticizing Public Security Minister Omer Barlev’s decision to allow it to go ahead.
“This plan is a problem. It’s possible to move it to a different route, nothing will happen,” and added that “it’s a waste to make this provocation at such a sensitive time,” he said.
