Right-wing activists plan Jerusalem flag march today
Tensions remain high • Route not yet approved by police • Palestinians, IDF clash at Homesh rally
Right-wing activists plan to march around Jerusalem’s Old City walls on Wednesday afternoon, in a move likely to increase Israeli-Palestinian tensions not only in the capital, but in the West Bank and Gaza as well.
As of press time, police had yet to approve Wednesday’s Old City flag march.
According to the Old City Youth organization and other right-wing groups, police claimed that the request for security was made too close to the date of the event. The groups responded that they “could not have known that there would be terrorist attacks, and that the Old City would be desolate during the intermediary days of the holiday, which are [usually] its peak days.”
The groups rejected the police’s request to reschedule the march, saying: “The police are essentially declaring to the citizens of Israel that there is no security in the Old City during this Passover, a worrying statement in terms of morals and security.”
The groups said that they intend to march in any case on Wednesday at 5 p.m., telling the police: “You’ve forgotten your role. We’ll march, you secure [it].”
The police said that it had invited the organizers of the event to a meeting to reschedule the event, and that the organizers had published details of the march before receiving permission from the police to hold it. The police added they are ready to secure the event if it is held at a later date.
Additionally, the Association
of Israeli Community Rabbis, headed by Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, claimed on Monday that the police would not let them hold festive prayers this year at the Davidson Center along the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount plaza. The association claimed that the decision was made by police due to concerns that it could “anger” Arabs.
The association said that it would hold the prayer services in any case, and called on police to secure the event.
Clashes broke out on the Temple Mount on Tuesday morning, as 853 Jews visited the site.
Over 300 Palestinians have been injured, most of them lightly, in daily clashes there and in the Old City that began on Friday.
Sensitivities have been particularly high, in light of the overlap of Ramadan month with the Passover holiday this week.
Arabs at the site on Tuesday attempted to block the pathways used by Jewish visitors in the morning with large stones. According to the Hamas-affiliated al-Resalah news site, Arabs also placed broken glass on the pathway since Jewish visitors often walk barefoot at the site due to religious law.
As security forces entered the site to secure it for the Jewish visitors, Arabs launched fireworks, with Israeli forces
responding by firing tear gas.
As Jewish visitors toured the site, Arabs barricaded inside the Aqsa Mosque and played the sound of rocket sirens and speeches by Hamas’s Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Obeida. Arabs also shouted slogans at Jewish visitors and banged on the doors and windows of the mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
A number of Arabs were arrested during the Jewish visits.
A court on Monday extended the arrests of 20 suspects arrested for taking part in riots, attacking people, throwing stones and launching fireworks in the Old City of Jerusalem two days ago, according to police.
Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement – who was released from prison in December after serving time for inciting terrorism – visited the Temple Mount on Monday.
Salah stated while at the site that al-Aqsa is an “Islamic, Arab, Palestinian right,” and that the Israeli presence there is an “occupying presence, and therefore it is false and without legitimacy,” according to Palestinian media.
Thousands of right-wing activists marched Tuesday to Homesh to stake their claim to the remote West Bank hilltop that Israel abandoned 17-years ago.
“We came to commit to settling all areas of the Land of Israel,” said MK Bezalel Smotrich.
Those at the march demanded that the government authorize the Homesh yeshiva, which is illegally located on the hilltop, and to rebuild the Homesh settlement that was destroyed in 2005 after the Gaza pullout.
Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionist Party, is among those politicians who want to see an all right-wing government replace the existing coalition that includes the Israeli-Arab party Ra’am.
“I have no expectations from this government that has surrendered to Islam,” said Smotrich.
Settlers and the Right have been braced for the IDF to evacuate the yeshiva.
MK Idit Silman (Yamina), who sparked a political crisis when she resigned from the coalition earlier this month, also participated in the march.
Other participants included relatives of terror victims from Homesh, including yeshiva student Yehuda Dimentman, 25, who was killed by a Palestinian gunman in December, and Shalom “Shuli” Har-Melekh, 25.
The Homesh march sparked clashes at the entryways to the Burqa and Bazaria villages in northern Samaria, in which scores of Palestinians were injured, including 11 with rubber bullets, according to the Pal