[News] Injuries among Palestinians in Israeli attacks in Jerusalem rise to 27

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-jerusalem-far-right-march-old-city-beatings-arrests
Beatings
and arrests ahead of far-right Israeli 'Flag March' in Jerusalem's Old City
By Shady Giorgio - June 15, 2021
------------------------------

Israeli police beat and arrested Palestinians on Tuesday, after closing
Damascus Gate to make way for Israelis gathering for the start of a
provocative nationalist march through occupied East Jerusalem's Old City.

The so-called Flag March was held on Tuesday after being cancelled during a
period when repeated Israeli crackdowns in al-Aqsa Mosque and the
threatened expulsion of Palestinian families was causing uproar in
Jerusalem.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/video/israeli-flag-march-explained#autoplay>

That tension led to last month's 11-day deadly Israeli offensive on Gaza.

Having closed off certain roads and Damascus Gate, Israeli police arrested
Palestinians in Jerusalem ahead of the march. Videos posted on Twitter
<https://twitter.com/tombateman/status/1404787570303700993> showed Israeli
officers beating a Palestinian on the steps by Damascus Gate.

The Red Crescent said 27 people were wounded during confrontations with
Israeli authorities around the Old City, including three from rubber-coated
steel bullets, one from being beaten and one who had been hit by part
of a sound
grenade. Two people were hospitalised.

Authorities beat vendors working in shops near Damascus Gate, and pushed
them away from the Old City. The area around the gate was sealed off by
early afternoon on Tuesday, except for members of the press, with several
barricades set up to clear the way for the settlers' march.
Chants of 'Death to Arabs'

More than a thousand Israelis waving national flags gathered at the basin
of Damascus Gate at the start of the march, singing anthems of the Jewish
state's settler movement.

Videos posted on social media showed Israelis waving flags and chanting "Death
to Arabs" <https://twitter.com/nirhasson/status/1404845127860903938>.

Some hoisted far-right lawmaker and Benjamin Netanyahu ally Itamar
Ben-Gvir, and Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism
faction, on their shoulders.

[image: Right-wing politicians Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich at
Tuesday's march (MEE/Supplied)]
Right-wing politicians Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich at Tuesday's
march (MEE/Supplied)

Israeli authorities raised the alert level in the country ahead of the
march, with additional police and military forces set to be deployed near
the besieged Gaza Strip and in towns in Israel with mixed populations of
Jewish and Palestinian citizens.

By Tuesday afternoon, a small number of incendiary balloons had been sent
from Gaza into Israel, with 20 fires reported along the Gaza border.

Israeli authorities also diverted flights towards the "Northern Route" in
and out of Israel, in anticipation of a possible escalation in Gaza.

The march ran along the Old City's wall from Damascus Gate to Jaffa Gate,
before heading towards the Western Wall.

Palestinian counter-protests took place in Jerusalem and in towns in Israel
with significant numbers of Palestinians, with some Palestinian groups
calling for a "day of rage" denouncing the far-right march.

In Gaza City, some demonstrators burned pictures of former Netanyahu as
well as his recent successor, pro-settlement Jewish nationalist and tech
millionaire Naftali Bennett.
New government's first test

The Flag March is usually held on the occasion of Jerusalem Day, which
marks Israel’s capture and subsequent occupation of East Jerusalem in the
1967 Middle East war.

The march typically brings together thousands of young, far-right religious
Israelis, who chant anti-Palestinian slogans and wave Israeli flags as they
pass through the small streets of East Jerusalem's Old City.

Initially scheduled for 10 May, the route of the Flag March had been
diverted away from the flashpoint of Damascus Gate
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestine-israel-jerusalem-damascus-gate-symbolic-tensions>
amid Palestinian protests against the planned forcible removal of
Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-sheikh-jarrah-judaise-jerusalem>
neighbourhood, and Israeli forces' violent raids at al-Aqsa Mosque
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-aqsa-attacks-how-violence-unfolded>
.

[image: A police barricade set up in from of Jerusalem's Damascus gate on
15 June, 2021. (MEE/Shady Giorgio)]
A police barricade set up in front of Jerusalem's Damascus Gate on 15 June
2021 (MEE/Shady Giorgio)

The march was called off that day, as sirens went off after Hamas fired
four rockets from Gaza towards Jerusalem when Israel ignored its ultimatum
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-aqsa-jerusalem-hamas-fires-rockets-sirens>
calling on Israeli forces to withdraw from al-Aqsa.

Over the following 11 days
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-gaza-west-bank-palestinians-israelis-killed-names>,
Israeli forces and Hamas engaged in a war that would leave 248 people in
Gaza dead and 13 in Israel.

The procession was later rescheduled for 10 June, but once again postponed
after Hamas warned of renewed hostilities should it proceed.

The new date for the march was set on 8 June by the cabinet of then-Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was voted out by Israel’s parliament on
Sunday after 12 years as premier.

The Flag March will be the first test for Bennett’s fragile coalition
government, cobbled together by the secular centrist Yair Lapid, a former
TV presenter, and including eight parties, ranging from Bennett's far-right
Yamina Party to left-wing Labor and an Islamist party representing
Palestinian citizens of Israel.

While Bennett is a prominent member of Israel’s far-right, Netanyahu has
labelled the new cabinet as a "dangerous" “left-wing” government, and
accused it of being "the greatest election fraud in the history" of Israel.
'A provocation against our people'

Jewish supremacists, including Israeli MP Itamar Ben-Gvir
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-elections-jewish-power-itamar-ben-gvir-kach-kahane>,
have meanwhile vowed to participate in the march regardless of what the new
government - or Palestinians - might say.

"I will arrive today to participate in the flag parade and I will fly the
Israeli flag," he wrote on Twitter
<https://twitter.com/itamarbengvir/status/1404751551487414278> on Tuesday
morning." We do not need permission from Hamas or the Islamic Jihad to
march in the capital of Israel."

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-new-government-unnatural-netanyahu-keep-together>

Israel's incoming government is so unnatural only Netanyahu can keep it
together

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh condemned the march
as "a provocation and aggression against our people, Jerusalem and its
sanctities that must end".

"We warn of the dangerous repercussions that may result from the occupying
power's intention to allow extremist Israeli settlers to carry out the Flag
March in occupied Jerusalem tomorrow," Shtayyeh tweeted
<https://twitter.com/DrShtayyeh/status/1404512163956498433> on Monday.

In April
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jerusalem-death-to-arabs-far-right-anti-palestinian-march>,
Israeli settlers had already marched in the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City
chanting "Death to Arabs," sparking clashes between Palestinians and
Israeli military police, who barred the former from sitting in the Damascus
Gate plaza.

UN Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland called on
<https://twitter.com/TWennesland/status/1404555018263478273> "all relevant
parties to act responsibly and avoid any provocations that could lead to
another round of confrontation."
Red Crescent: Injuries among natives in Israeli attacks in Jerusalem rise
to 27
Israeli forces arresting a young man within the Israeli campaign against
native Palestinians to allow a settlers' mass raid. [Credit: al Qastal]

June 15, 2021 - https://qudsnen.co/?p=26056

Occupied Jerusalem (QNN)- The Red Crescent said that the number of native
Palestinians injures d in the Israeli attacks in Jerusalem rose to 27. Four
of the injuries have been taken to hospitals.

Israeli forces deployed in the holy city and attacked Palestinians, while
on the other side protected settlers.

Israeli Jewish fanatics spread in the holy city, holding Israeli flags and
chanting racist slogans. The slogans included incites against Palestinians
and Arabs and insults against the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad peace be upon
him.

Israeli forces attacked journalists in Bab Al Amoud, trying to prevent them
from covering the Israeli provocations.
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