ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/CLASHES BACKGROUND Clashes erupt in Jerusalem between Jews and Palestinians

Record ID: 155077

  • Title: ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/CLASHES BACKGROUND Clashes erupt in Jerusalem between Jews and Palestinians
  • Date: 17th May 2015
  • Summary: ISRAELI JEWS DANCING AND SINGING PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS HOLDING PALESTINIAN FLAG, WATCHING ISRAELI JEWS DANCING AND SINGING ACROSS THE STREET
  • Embargoed: 1st June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Jerusalem
  • City:
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVACKWYPR6KWADBOG06YEG2RWZVG
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Jews marking Israeli Jerusalem Day on Sunday (May 17) clashed with Palestinians who were protesting against the event near the Old City walls.
    The clashes erupted the annual "Flag Dance" march to Jerusalem's Western Wall as the participants prepared to pass through the Muslim Quarter.
    Six Israeli Arabs were arrested during protesting, while two policemen were injured from rocks thrown towards them said Israeli police spokesperson Mickey Rosenfeld.
    Between 30,000 to 40,000 people are expected to participate in the march in different parts of the city, police said.
    Israel deployed 3,000 policemen and additional security forces across Jerusalem ahead of the events marking the 48th anniversary of the capture of East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967 Middle East war.
    Member of Israeli organization Ir Amim, Ahmad Sub Laban, said that the organization appealed against allowing the march to pass through the Muslim Quarter, but an Israeli judge ruled in favour of allowing the march to pass through its usual rout despite violence and damages that were caused to the Muslim Quarter last year.
    "During that march, the old city gets closed and its residents are forbidden from entering or exiting it. They say that day for them feels like a prison, keeping them inside their houses. They are forbidden to go in and out of the Old City. They are also attacked, some of their properties are destroyed. The shopkeepers are forced to close their stores without being given a warrant," said Ahmad Sub Laban.
    Palestinian shop keeper Mohammed Ali, says that it's a day of loss and damages for all Palestinian business owners on the route of the march.
    "They come while the shops are closed, and of course they empty the city, it's forbidden to enter one's house from here. They empty the city, they start destroying the shops. They break any lamp or glass. They ruin the locks with sticks. They destroy everything," said Mohammed Ali.
    Police advised Muslim merchants to shutter their shops during the annual march on what Israel calls Jerusalem Day, the anniversary of its capture of East Jerusalem from Jordan.
    "The city completely shuts down. The entrances to Jerusalem, especially the old city, are closed because the settlers get crazy, hysterical and racists. What they consider is Jerusalem unity day, they rule with their numbers because there are a lot of them, and they don't leave any woman, child or man alone. They either attack or beat them. They even attack journalists," said Jihad AlRajabi, another Palestinian shopkeeper.
    The U.S.-born activist Yehuda Glick has been a prominent activist in a far-right movement to win Jews permission to pray at the site known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary.
    "But I know that if I'm alive, my mission that I believe which what god wants from me has to continue. That is freedom, human rights, tolerance and that is temple mount for all Jews, Christian and Muslims," said Yehuda Glick.
    Israeli forces seized East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. As Israel regards all of the city as its unified capital, Palestinians living there hold Israeli residency permits although they are not citizens.
    However, most world powers do not recognise Israel's designation of East Jerusalem, and want to see it as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
    Next to the Western Wall, the march's destination, stands the contested site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, which contains al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest site, and the Dome of the Rock shrine.
    Israeli ultranationalists have been pressing for prayer rights there, which has heightened tensions with Palestinians.
    The old city is also home to Christian holy sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the site where Christian tradition says Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.
    Palestinians, who account for more than 30 percent of the city's overall population, want East Jerusalem to be capital of the state they seek to establish in the West Bank and Gaza, also land that Israel captured in the 1967 war.
    The Jerusalem march went ahead after the Israeli Supreme Court rejected a civil rights group's petition to ban the march through mostly Palestinian areas of the old city to avoid violence.
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