Jerusalem – Thousands of Israeli nationalists marched through east Jerusalem on Wednesday as authorities deployed tense police from the skies after nearly eight months Gaza War. That war appeared to be intensifying in Gaza, and far-right nationalists staged their annual march, long considered a provocation by the Palestinians, in Jerusalem.
The so-called Jerusalem Day Flag March commemorates the capture by the Israeli army during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war of the eastern sector of the city, which is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest in Islam. The Jews call it the Temple Mount.
Thousands of Jewish nationalists, including far-right activists, marched through the predominantly Arab neighborhoods of the Old City, waving Israeli national flags, dancing and occasionally shouting incendiary or racist slogans.
“This is my country. I am the owner here. I am the boss here, there is no Palestine,” shouted one participant as he walked past a group of reporters.
Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
Since early Wednesday, police have set up barriers near the Damascus Gate after announcing plans to deploy more than 3,000 officers during the day. Most shops in the Old City were closed before the march began as the streets slowly emptied of Palestinians and filled with young Israelis, some of whom were carrying weapons.
Young people were seen near Jaffa Gate waving large Israeli flags and chanting “The people of Israel live”, and some wore T-shirts with the words “My land, I don't want to divide it”.
Some far-right protesters clashed with a journalist in the sector's Muslim quarter, according to an AFP correspondent. Many threw empty water bottles at journalists covering the event at Damascus Gate, and some of them were taken away by police.
For many Palestinians, the route through predominantly Arab neighborhoods is seen as a deliberate provocation. The Palestinians claim the eastern sector of the city as the capital of its expected future state.
A man who gave his name as Ibrahim said: “Shops must not close their doors, and they must not allow settlers to take over the city. All Arabs must be in Jerusalem today.” .
Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir told the march: “We are sending a message to Hamas. Jerusalem is ours. Damascus Gate is ours. The Temple Mount is ours.”
“With God's help, total victory is ours,” he said, referring to Israel's ongoing war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as a crowd cheered.
Hamas warned Israel in a statement on Wednesday “against the consequences of continuing these criminal policies against our sanctities, at the heart of which is the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque,” and the group called on the Palestinians “to today Wednesday, a day of anger.”
This year's march came nearly eight months after Hamas launched its terror attack on Oct. 7, which killed about 1,200 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to Israeli officials, and sparked the war in Gaza.
This retaliatory offensive in the densely populated Palestinian enclave has killed at least 36,550 people, mostly civilians, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
Tsafrir Abayov/AP
There are signs this week that, along with increased clashes along Israel's northern border with the Lebanese group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally that is, like the Iran-backed Gaza-based group, the offensive in the Gaza Strip is intensifying.
Israeli authorities said 11 people were wounded, one critically, when rockets from southern Lebanon hit the northern village of Hurfeish.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited the region earlier in the day, warned that his government was ready to take “very strong action” against Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces said on Wednesday it had taken “operational control” of two areas in central Gaza as it continued to carry out ground operations and airstrikes across the territory.
The army said it was fighting “above and below ground” in the eastern city of Deir al-Balah and Bureij refugee camp.
CBS News visited Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah early Wednesday, and doctors said it had received 74 bodies in the previous 24 hours.
CBS News' Marwan al-Ghoul said the bombing in Bureij camp and elsewhere in central Gaza had been continuous, sending refugees fleeing for safety.
