Tense Tuesday for new PM as talk of march gripped Israel

JERUSALEM: Israelis prepared for possible unrest ahead of a planned march by Jewish ultranationalists through east Jerusalem on Tuesday that poses an early test for the country’s fragile new government and the tenuous truce with Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers.

Palestinians consider the march, which usually winds through the Old City’s Damascus Gate and into the heart of the Muslim Quarter, a provocation. Hamas has called on Palestinians to “resist” the parade, a version of which was held at the height of last month’s unrest in the city and helped ignite the 11-day Gaza war.

Though there are concerns that Tuesday’s march will raise tensions, cancelling it would have opened newly minted Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other right-wing members of the coalition to intense criticism from those who would view it as a capitulation to Hamas.

The coalition was sworn in on Sunday night and includes parties from across the political spectrum, including a small Arab party.

Mansour Abbas, whose party is the first Arab faction to join a governing coalition, told a local radio station he was opposed to any “provocation”, adding that “anyone who has watched and followed this parade knows what its purpose is”.

Police approved a route that will pass by the Damascus Gate, where Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli police over restrictions on public gatherings during the month of Ramadan in April and May.

At the height of those tensions, on May 10, Israeli ultranationalists held their annual parade. As the crisis peaked, Hamas fired long-range rockets at Jerusalem, disrupting the march and sparking the latest Gaza conflict, which claimed more than 250 Palestinian lives and killed 13 people in Israel.