Israeli nationalists chanted “death to the Arabs,” “may your villages burn” and “Gaza is a graveyard” in a state-sponsored march through Jerusalem to mark the anniversary of the city’s capture and annexation.
The annual assertion of Jewish control over Palestinian East Jerusalem has grown more extreme in recent years, and Thursday’s event culminated with Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir unfurling an Israeli flag in front of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the holiest Islamic site in the city.
Most Palestinians in the Muslim quarter of the Old City had shuttered their shops and gone home before the march began, but members of far-right radical Jewish groups who had entered scuffled with Palestinian residents still there, with both sides throwing chairs at each other, until separated by police who entered the city that afternoon in force.
“I’ve come to show all the world that this is our city. This is the Holy Land. God gave us this country and this city,” 19-year-old marcher Ariel Amichai said.
Asked what the intended message of the march was to Palestinians in Jerusalem, he replied: “That they must leave. This is our country. And they can’t just be here and try to stab us or kill us.”
