Palestine weekly wrap: Jerusalem Day, Nakba mark week of surging attacks

Tens of thousands of ultra-nationalist Israelis marched through Jerusalem’s Old City during Jerusalem Day, chanting for Arabs’ death and attacking Palestinian shops and residents. Israeli officials barred men under 60 and women under 50 from entering Al-Aqsa, enabling settler incursions and violating the status quo that restricts non-Muslim prayer and assigns custodianship to the Jordanian-administered Islamic Waqf. Far-right figures raised flags at the Al-Aqsa compound and made statements about removing mosques and building the Temple. Videos showed settlers attacking residents in the Christian Quarter and Silwan, while police expelled solidarity activists and allowed marchers through. Violence also included a coordinated settler push into Areas A and B of the West Bank, killing a 16-year-old and displacing seven families, alongside military attacks on Gaza and legislative actions aimed at imposing facts on the ground before elections.

"On May 14, Jerusalem Day — Israel's annual celebration of its 1967 capture of occupied East Jerusalem — tens of thousands of ultra-nationalist Israelis marched through the Old City chanting death to Arabs' and may your villages burn', while attacking Palestinian shops and residents. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir raised the Israeli flag in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, declaring the Temple Mount is in our hands' using the Jewish term for the site while fellow Jewish Power legislator Yitzhak Kroizer prostrated himself before the Dome of the Rock Mosque and declared on social media, the time has come to get rid of all the mosques and work to construct the Temple."

"Israeli authorities barred men under 60 and women under 50 from entering Al-Aqsa that morning, clearing it for settler incursions more than 2,200 in total during the week, according to the Palestinian Authority's Jerusalem Governorate in gross violation of the status quo', which prohibits non-Muslim prayer at the site and vests custodianship in the Jordanian-administered Islamic Waqf. Videos circulated of settlers attacking residents in the Old City's Christian Quarter and Silwan, reporters shoved and spat upon, and solidarity activists expelled by police while marchers were allowed through."

"The week as a whole amounted to one of the most intense periods of violence and dispossession in recent weeks driven not only by Jerusalem Day but by a coordinated settler push into Areas A and B of the West Bank that killed a 16-year-old, displaced seven families, as well as military attacks on Gaza and legislative actions that signal an Israeli government determined to impose facts on the ground before elections later this year. The week's most devastating act of settler violence in the occupied West Bank was on May 13, when dozens of settlers, under military"

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