Jerusalem Day: Israelis celebrate as Palestinians rally against flag march

Tens of thousands of Israeli nationalists marched through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's walled Old City on Thursday in an annual event that has drawn condemnation from the Palestinians and stirred fears of renewed violence.

As crowds gathered at the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City, a handful of flags belonging to Lehava, a far-right anti-Arab group, could be seen among the mass of blue and white Israeli national flags.

The parade is the main celebration on Jerusalem Day, when Israel marks its capture of Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. The event has increasingly become a show of force for Jewish nationalists and, for Palestinians, a blatant provocation meant to undermine their ties to the city.

Meanwhile, Hamas and Islamic Jihad members joined a Palestinian rally on Thursday against the flag march in Jerusalem by right-wing Israelis.

“The march of the flags will not bring you sovereignty over Jerusalem, which you turned into a military base. Jerusalem will remain the eternal one and united capital of Palestine. Jerusalem will remain Arab and Islamic, and the occupation has no place to say on the land of Palestine,” Hamas official Ismail Rudwan told Reuters during the rally.

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