Jerusalem Day march > Utilisateur:Djampa, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The terror group Hamas, which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007, warned on Sunday that it could still respond to the weekend’s Jerusalem Day flag march “at the right time”.
Last year, Hamas fired a number of rockets at Jerusalem during the annual parade, sparking an 11-day conflict with Israel.
Some 70,000 nationalist Israelis marched through Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday, with some chanting racist slogans and clashing with local police.
The chanting and violence were condemned by foreign minister Yair Lapid, who criticised the “extremists” and “racists” who sought to “make it a day of hate”.
There were also minor confrontations between marchers and Palestinians, dozens of whom barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque and threw rocks at security forces outside.
Some 60 people were detained by police during the course of the day, which saw five Israeli police officers left injured.
Public security minister Omer Barlev said that it was crucial that the march went ahead despite threats from terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
“With the exception of a few isolated incidents, the event in Jerusalem passed as planned”, he added.
Jerusalem Day is a minor religious holiday commemorating the capture of the Old City from Jordan in 1967 during the Six Day War.
In recent years it has been mainly celebrated by right-wing religious Jews.
