The Palestinian Presidency says Israel is “playing with fire” as thousands of Israeli Jews prepare to march through Muslim areas in Jerusalem’s Old City.
The annual event comes at a time of particularly high tensions following months of deadly incidents.
The Flag March takes place on Israel’s Jerusalem Day, celebrating its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war.
Israel regards the whole of Jerusalem as its capital, something rejected by most countries and the Palestinians.
The status of the city goes to the heart of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians claim Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of a future hoped-for state of their own, though Israel says the city will never be redivided.
“Israel is irresponsibly and recklessly playing with fire by allowing settlers to desecrate the holy sites” in East Jerusalem, the president’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa. Palestinian officials often describe Israelis who visit a key holy site in the Old City revered by Muslims and Jews as settlers and their presence there as a desecration.
There were skirmishes at a flashpoint site on Sunday morning when Palestinians threw fireworks and rocks at police, who fired what appeared to be stun grenades.
Shortly after, large groups of Jewish visitors, including far-right MP Itamar Ben Gvir, arrived at the site, where some danced, waved Israeli flags and appeared to pray, before being stopped by police. Palestinians view such actions as deliberately provocative and militant groups had warned they would not tolerate it.
There were also scuffles afterwards between Palestinians and Israelis outside another gate leading directly onto the site, local media reported.
Last year, a devastating 11-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza erupted on Jerusalem Day when Gaza’s Hamas rulers fired rockets towards the city after Israeli police and Palestinians clashed at the holy site.
Bbc/Adebukola Aluko
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