‘May your village burn’: Israeli Flag March returns to East Jerusalem
Key takeaways
- Far-right Israelis attack Palestinians during the Flag March, intensifying violence and racism in Jerusalem’s Old City.
- Palestinians from outside the Old City were not allowed in by police.
- This year’s event on Thursday saw fighting break out even before the march officially began, as ultranationalist Israelis – many of them young teenagers – attacked Palestinians in the Christian Quarter.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Far-right Israelis attack Palestinians during the Flag March, intensifying violence and racism in Jerusalem’s Old City.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Israeli settlers join the Jerusalem Day parade at the Damascus Gate in occupied East Jerusalem, May 14, 2026 [AFP]By Simon Speakman Cordall Published On 14 May 202614 May 2026Uri Weltmann was tense. He’s the national field director for Standing Together, an organisation of Jewish and Palestinian peace activists, who had gathered to resist the tens of thousands of far-right Jewish marchers heading for occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City.
He had reason to be worried. ‘Jerusalem Day’, marked by Jewish Israelis every year to celebrate the 1967 capture and subsequent illegal occupation of the city, has become an opportunity for thousands to be bussed in from across Israel and the occupied West Bank to participate in the ‘Flag March’, where they maraud through the Old City and attack Palestinians – as well as Jewish peace activists. Palestinians from outside the Old City were not allowed in by police.