Flag March in Old City of East Jerusalem

Context:

• The Dance of Flags (or March of Flags) is an annual parade held on Jerusalem Day to mark what some Israelis call the "reunification of Jerusalem," following Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims.

• The event, dominated by far-right Jewish Israelis and groups like Lehava, passes through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, often resulting in violence and racist chants targeting Palestinians. Many Palestinian residents close their businesses and homes on this day to avoid violence, and the Israel Police enforce closures and checkpoints.

• The event is closely associated with the Religious Zionism party, which led efforts for judicial reform in Israel in 2023.

• The parade features Israeli flag-bearers, mobile orchestras, and performances, but today it is largely attended by members of the Religious Zionism movement.

• Extremist Jewish youths attending the Flag March have been known to harass and beat Palestinians during the procession, especially as it enters the Old City through the Muslim Quarter’s Damascus Gate.

• On June 2024, march saw several attacks on Palestinians and journalists by marchers, who chanted anti-Arab refrains and plastered stickers on shuttered shops supporting the ideology of the late ultranationalist rabbi Meir Kahane and calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

On May 26, 2025

• National-religious Israelis clash with Palestinian shopkeepers and sing racist chants in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City ahead of the annual contentious Flag March.

• The Jewish marchers chant “Death to Arabs” while thronging the Muslim Quarter.

• A group of Jewish young men and teens singing “May your village burn,” a common anti-Arab refrain.

• Some are filmed shoving an elderly Palestinian man making his way through the crowd.

• One of the Jewish teen celebrants attempts to prevent the reporter from filming as police and border cops use force to separate the crowd from Palestinians and left-wing activist

• A Palestinian youth was arrested after he pepper-sprayed a crowd of Jewish revelers during a scuffle that broke out between the two groups.

• The video shows security officials escorting a group of Arab women away from the jostling crowd in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. But, in the international press, the role of the Israeli Police is more criticized noticing that a policeman raised his arms in celebration at one point, recognizing a marcher and going in for a hug.

• Activits from "Standing Together" were seen assaulted or harrassed by the young marchers.

Al Aqsa mosquee desecration

Hundreds of Jewish "Marchers" desecrated the mosquee Al Aqsa with dances, prayers and Israeli flags, even if this place is prohibated for Jews in order to avoid escalation between Muslim and Jewish communities in Jerusalem and in the diplomatic international relations. Al-Aqsa Mosque is part of the Haram al-Sharif (also known to Jews as the Temple Mount) in East Jerusalem. According to the long-standing "status quo" agreement (established under Ottoman, then British, Jordanian, and later Israeli authority): Muslims have the exclusive right to worship at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. But Non-Muslims, including Jews, are allowed to visit, but not pray at the site. This arrangement is overseen by the Islamic Waqf (a Jordanian religious trust), while Israel controls security.

Dangerous Precedents:

In recent years, especially under far-right Israeli politicians and settler groups, Jewish visits — and even prayers — have increasingly occurred at the site, often with police escort. This is seen by Palestinians and much of the Muslim world as a violation of the status quo, and a step toward asserting Jewish religious control over the site. Many fear it sets a "dangerous precedent" because it could trigger wider religious conflict, given the site's extreme sensitivity. It may pave the way for partitioning the compound, as happened at the Ibrahimi Mosque (Cave of the Patriarchs) in Hebron, after the 1994 massacre — where Jews and Muslims were eventually allocated separate space. Thee Second Intifada (2000) were triggered by Ariel Sharon’s visiting to the Al Aqsa compound.

UNRWA compound assault

A small group of protesters, including an Israeli member of parliament Yulia Malinovsky of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, meanwhile, stormed a compound in east Jerusalem belonging to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.

Malinovsky set up a makeshift “parliamentary office” near the compound at Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem. She was one of the sponsors of the law to shut down UNRWA’s operations in Israel. She took a jab at the coalition: “Happy Jerusalem Day! Government of Israel, we’re here—you’re welcome to come and see how sovereignty is applied".

Echoes in the International Media Outlets

The event is reported in the international Media, in reason of the risk to inflame tensions in a context of the genocide in Gaza.

Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher with the Ir Amim non-profit that works for an equitable Jerusalem, said: “It deprives people of their economic livelihood, makes them feel unsafe in their surroundings. Symbolically it sends a message: ‘You don’t belong here, we are the ones who own this place.’”

B'tselem statement

"The ‘Flag March’ is an example of Jewish supremacy: thousands of Jewish-Israelis celebrate defiantly while Palestinians are forced to shut their shops and stay home in fear."

Emek Shaveh statement

"The march is anything but a show of love for Jerusalem. It is anything but educational. It is what a society looks like when it has lost its way."