Jerusalem: Chanting “Death to Arabs” and singing “May your village burn,” groups of young Israeli Jews made their way through Muslim neighborhoods of Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday ahead of an annual march marking Israel’s conquest of the eastern part of the city.
Palestinian shopkeepers had closed up early and police lined the narrow alleys ahead of the march that often becomes a rowdy and sometimes violent procession of ultranationalist Jews. A policeman raised his arms in celebration at one point, recognizing a marcher and going in for a hug.
A small group of protesters, including an Israeli member of parliament, meanwhile, stormed a compound in east Jerusalem belonging to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. The march commemorates Jerusalem Day — which marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war.