AP, Jerusalem :
Israelis prepared for possible unrest ahead of a planned march by Jewish ultranationalists through east Jerusalem on Tuesday that poses a test for the country’s fragile new government and the tenuous truce with Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers.
Palestinians consider the rowdy 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 Tuesday’s march will raise tensions, canceling 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 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 repeatedly clashed with Israeli police over restrictions on public gatherings during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in April and May.
But the crowd will not pass through the gate into the heart of the Muslim Quarter, a crowded Palestinian neighborhood with narrow streets and alleys. Instead, police said they are to walk around the ancient walls of the Old City and then enter through Jaffa Gate, a main thoroughfare for tourists, head toward the Jewish Quarter and on to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray.
Last month’s clashes at the Damascus Gate eventually spread to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint site sacred to Jews and Muslims. Tensions at the time were further fueled by protests over the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers, also in Jerusalem.
At the height of those tensions, on May 10, Israeli ultranationalists held their annual parade, and while it was diverted from the Damascus Gate at the last minute, it was seen by Palestinians as an unwelcome celebration of Israeli control over what they view as their capital. In the name of defending the holy city, Hamas fired long-range rockets at Jerusalem, disrupting the march and sparking the Gaza war, which claimed more than 250 Palestinian lives and killed 13 people in Israel.
Now organizers are again staging the parade, which includes the waving of blue-and-white flags and the chanting of slogans to celebrate Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move not recognized by most of the international community and considers the entire city its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state. The competing claims over east Jerusalem, home to sensitive Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites, lie at the heart of the conflict and have sparked many rounds of violence.
Hamas issued a statement calling on Palestinians to show “valiant resistance” to the march, which was to begin in the early evening. It urged people to gather in the streets of the Old City and at the Al-Aqsa Mosque to “rise up in the face of the occupier and resist it by all means to stop its crimes and arrogance.”
Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, of the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority, called the march an “aggression against our people.”
Israeli media reported that the military was on heightened alert in the occupied West Bank and along the Gaza frontier to prepare for possible violence. Batteries of Israel’s Iron Dome rocket-defense system were seen deployed near the southern town of Netivot, near the Gaza border, as a precautionary measure. Hundreds of police will also be deployed.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Palestinians launched balloons carrying burning rags toward southern Israeli farmland. The Israel Fire and Rescue Services said it was fighting several blazes apparently caused by the balloons.
Abu Malek, one of the young men launching the balloons, said called the move “an initial response” to the march.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with the military chief of staff, the police commissioner and other senior security officials on Tuesday. He “underscored the need to avoid friction and protect the personal safety of … Jews and Arabs alike.”
U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said U.N. officials have urged all sides to avoid “provocations” in order to solidify the informal cease-fire that halted the Gaza war.
