
Palestinians Clean up after Israeli Nationalist March in Jerusalem
Some had to use crowbars, hammers and wirecutters to regain access to their own shops after many were vandalised during the Jerusalem Day march the day before.
Jerusalem Day commemorates Israeli forces taking east Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
On Tuesday, metal shutters protecting the shopfronts bore the marks of the parade's passing, with padlocks blocked and stickers slapped upon them, AFP reported.
"No humanitarian aid for Gaza," read one sticker from Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power).
The far-right party headed by firebrand politician and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir had a major presence in Monday's march.
Ben Gvir visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, during the Jerusalem Day events.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem, including the annexed Palestinian-majority east, its indivisible capital.
The international community does not recognize this, and Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
On Tuesday, when employees of an east Jerusalem electricity supplier arrived at their office they discovered the front windows broken and the door blocked.
- 'Childish acts' -
A company official, Ismail Eshqart, came from headquarters to change the lock and assess the damage.
He told AFP they had expected "a little more tension" than usual this year in the alley in the Muslim Quarter where Palestinians and a few Israeli residents, mostly religious Jews, mingle daily.
He said there had been "deliberate acts of vandalism", but he did not name the suspected perpetrators.
"It's the same story every year," said clothes seller Abu Osama, referring to Jerusalem Day marchers.
"They come and attack shops, make them close, and they break things, they throw firecrackers," he told AFP as a municipal employee arrived with an electric saw to cut the padlock on the door of his sabotaged shop.
"They do what they want and nobody says to them 'what are you doing? That's not allowed'!" Abu Osama added, angry at lost time over "childish acts" that made him open several hours late.
Fruit sellers at stalls in front of the Damascus Gate into the Old City shared his dismay, but shrugged as they unloaded boxes of cherries and peaches.
"The situation is worse and worse," said grandmother Umm Mohammed who was born in the Old City and had come to do her shopping.
- 'It's crazy!' -
"We want to live in peace -- we are kind people," she said, adding that she did not leave the house on Monday.
Umm Mohammed said that last year, one man she knows "came out of his house and they hit him -- and he is a big guy!"
Armed with solvent and sponges, a group of around 10 Israeli and foreign volunteers arrived on Tuesday morning to help clean up in the march's aftermath.
"I came to do what I could, even if it's not much," said one volunteer who asked not to be identified.
They scuttled between the shops, trying to avoid police patrols, but several were briefly stopped for allegedly disturbing the peace.
Contacted by AFP, police did not respond to a request for comment.
"It's really upside down. It's crazy," said 24-year-old Joshua Korn of the Israeli-Palestinian activist group Standing Together.
"It's crazy because these people who are here to protect us... they shout at us that we're provoking... just because we're here to remove racist graffiti and stickers that have been put up by settlers in an act of provocation!" Korn said of the police.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
Five Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza: military
JERUSALEM: Five Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in the northern Gaza Strip, Israel's military said on Tuesday, as Israel and Hamas held indirect talks in Qatar on an elusive of the soldiers 'fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip,' the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that three others were killed and two severely wounded in the same wounded soldiers were 'evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment and their families have been notified,' the military latest round of negotiations on the nearly two-year war in Gaza began on Sunday in Doha, with representatives of Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas seated in different rooms in the same talks ended with 'no breakthrough,' a Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations Hamas and Israeli delegations were due to resume talks, with US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff also set to join them this week in an effort to secure a US proposal included a 60-day truce, during which Hamas would release 10 living hostages, taken during its October 2023 attack on Israel, and several bodies in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel, two Palestinian sources close to the discussions earlier was also demanding certain conditions for Israel's withdrawal, guarantees against a resumption of fighting during negotiations, and the return of the UN-led aid distribution system, they said.

Al Arabiya
4 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Israeli military says five soldiers killed during combat in northern Gaza
The Israeli military said on Tuesday that five soldiers were killed and two were severely injured during combat in northern Gaza. Developing

Al Arabiya
5 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Netanyahu says any future Palestinian state would be a platform to destroy Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he wanted peace with Palestinians but described any future independent state as a platform to destroy Israel, and for that reason, sovereign power over security must remain with Israel. Speaking at the White House, where he met US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu described the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip – where Hamas was in control – as evidence of what Palestinians would do with a state. Trump said, 'I don't know,' when he was asked by reporters if a two-state solution was possible and referred the question to Netanyahu. Netanyahu said: 'I think the Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers to threaten us. That means a sovereign power, like overall security, will always remain in our hands.' Later he added: 'After October 7th, people said the Palestinians have a state, a Hamas state in Gaza, and look what they did with it. They didn't build it up. They built down into bunkers, into terror tunnels after which they massacred our people, raped our women, beheaded our men, invaded our cities and our towns, our kibbutzim and did horrendous massacres, the kind of which we didn't see since World War Two and the Nazis, the Holocaust. So people aren't likely to say, 'Let's just give them another state.' It'll be a platform to destroy Israel.' 'We will work out a peace with our Palestinian neighbors, those who don't want to destroy us, and we will work out a peace in which our security, the sovereign power of security, always remains in our hands,' Netanyahu said. 'Now people will say, 'It's not a complete state, it's not a state, it's not that.' We don't care. We vowed never again. Never again is now. It's not going to happen again.' Palestinians have long sought to create an independent state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem through a US-mediated peace process. Many accuse Israel of having destroyed Palestinian statehood prospects through increased settlement building in the West Bank and by leveling much of Gaza during the current war. Israel rejects this. Cabinet ministers in Netanyahu's Likud party called last week for Israel to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the Knesset recesses at the end of July. Israel's pro-settler politicians have been emboldened by the return to the White House of Trump, who has proposed Palestinians leave Gaza – a suggestion widely condemned across the Middle East and beyond. The Gaza war erupted when Hamas attacked southern Israel in October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, with 20 believed to be alive. Israel's subsequent assault on the Palestinian enclave has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry. Most of Gaza's population has been displaced by the war. Trump hosted Netanyahu at a White House dinner on Monday, while Israeli officials held indirect negotiations with Hamas in Qatar aimed at securing a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal.