Israel braces for unrest ahead of right-wing Jerusalem march

Jerusalem: Israelis prepared for possible unrest ahead of a planned march by Jewish ultranationalists through east Jerusalem on Tuesday that could ignite Palestinian protests and clashes with police just weeks after an an 11-day Gaza war.

The march poses an early test for Israel's fragile new government, which was sworn in on Sunday and includes parties from across the political spectrum, including a small Arab party.

Cancelling the march would have opened Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other right-wing members of the coalition to intense criticism from those who would view it as a capitulation to Gaza's militant Hamas rulers. Hamas has called on Palestinians to resist the

march.

Mansour Abbas, whose small party is the first Arab faction to join a governing coalition, told a local radio station he was opposed to any provocation, adding that anyone who has watched and followed this parade knows what its purpose is.

Police approved a route that will pass by the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City, where Palestinian protesters repeatedly clashed with police over restrictions on public gatherings during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in April and May.

Those clashes eventually spread to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a flashpoint holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims, and merged with protests over the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers.

Every year, Israeli ultranationalists wave blue-and-white flags and chant slogans as they march through the Damascus Gate and into the crowded heart of the Muslim Quarter to celebrate Israel's capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war.

The parade was originally scheduled for May 10. As thousands of Jewish activists began the procession, police ordered a change in the route to avoid the Damascus Gate.

Hamas militants in Gaza then fired a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem, igniting the war that took more than 250 Palestinian lives and killed 13 people in Israel.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said U.N. officials have urged all sides to avoid provocations in order to solidify the informal cease-fire that halted the Gaza war.