Overview
- Jerusalem Day marchers, who entered the Old City on Thursday, were filmed chanting “Death to Arabs,” pounding shop shutters and confronting Palestinian residents.
- Israeli police said they deployed about 3,000 officers and reported few incidents, a claim challenged by footage showing harassment and by eyewitness reports of damage to shops and homes.
- National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited the Temple Mount and wrote that he raised an Israeli flag there, as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also appeared at the site.
- Standing Together activists tried to shield shopkeepers and hand out flowers, while many Old City businesses stayed closed and families remained indoors out of fear.
- Reporters described being blocked from filming and activists were at times removed by police, in a scene that has recurred on Jerusalem Day in recent years with radical settler youth groups present.