Marchers chant ‘Death to Arabs,’ skirmish with shopkeepers and cops at Jerusalem Day parade
Ben Gvir slams Gaza humanitarian aid while kicking off nationalist march into Old City: ‘Our enemies deserve only a bullet to the head’; activists erect giant sign urging mass expulsion of Palestinians
Tens of thousands of religious Zionist revelers thronged the alleyways of Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday, chanting anti-Arab refrains as they paraded to the Western Wall to celebrate Jerusalem Day.
Many celebrants could be heard chanting “death to Arabs” and singing “may your village burn” while carousing about Jerusalem to mark the city’s reunification in wake of Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Before the annual Flag March kicked off in the afternoon, many young marchers had already begun roving around the Old City, skirmishing with Palestinian shopkeepers and police officers.
It was the second time the Flag March through the Old City, a contentious event in its own right, took place amid the war in Gaza since the conflict there began with Hamas’s terror onslaught of October 7, 2023.
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.
Israel Police chief Danny Levy said in the evening that law enforcement made no arrests, but detained several people, without specifying how many. Last year police made 18 arrests.
The Times of Israel witnessed several people who were violently detained over the course of the morning.
The Palestinians who opened their shops at all on Monday closed up by early afternoon — most at around 2 p.m. — in anticipation of the nationalist parade.
Ahead of the march, a group of right-wing activists gathered outside Damascus Gate to unveil a large banner reading: “Without a Nakba, there is no victory!”
התנועה בעלת הסממנים הפאשיסטים @ImTirtzu קוראת לבצע פשעים נגד האנושות
מזל שיש את יום ירושלים כדי שכולם יוכלו לראות כמה הימין הישראלי מטורלל
קרדיט תמונה : ״אם תרצו״ (כן הם אשכרה פירסמו את התמונה הזאת בגאווה ברשתות שלהם) pic.twitter.com/hlMDqys7Vm
— נדב וימן Nadav Weiman (@weimanadav) May 26, 2025
The Nakba, or catastrophe, is the Arabic name for the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who either left their homes or were expelled in the late 1940s, during the War of Indepedence and major Middle East demographic shifts surrounding the creation of the State of Israel.
The group’s other banner urged Israel to take over Gaza just like East Jerusalem after it was captured from Jordan in the Six Day War.
Revelers were to march under the slogan “from victory to victory,” march organizer Meir Indor told The Times of Israel on Sunday, connecting Israel’s 1967 triumph to the ongoing offensive in Gaza.
‘Our enemies deserve only a bullet to the head’
Launching the Flag Parade that afternoon, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir addressed a large crowd of celebrants, mostly yeshiva students from across the country, outside the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem.
Enthused teenagers close to the stage reached out to the minister while shouting his name, handing him flags and stickers to hold as he danced with Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, a member of his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party.
One young man gave him a flag bearing the logo of his party. Another handed him a sticker that reads “Gaza is ours forever.”
Before speaking, Ben Gvir held up a sticker with the name and face of a slain IDF soldier.
“What sweethearts, what sweethearts you are,” he said. “Bringing me stickers of slain soldiers, may God avenge their blood, heroes and martyrs, thanks to them we are winning.”
But, Ben Gvir added, “this victory must be taken further and further… we will enter Gaza and triumph!” The crowd cheered.
He came out against the recent government decision to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. “I say to the prime minister, dear prime minister, we must not give them humanitarian aid, we must not give them fuel… our enemies deserve only a bullet to the head!”
As revelers began to chant “Death to Arabs,” Ben Gvir shifted course, chanting instead, “Death to terrorists,” with the crowd following his lead.
Ben Gvir told the celebrants: “Guys, I want to say something — I don’t hate Arabs, but I hate terrorists, and I want a death penalty for terrorists, and God willing, we must win.”
Earlier in the day, Ben Gvir visited the Temple Mount and declared that Jewish prayer, including full prostration, was allowed at the holy site, a move that would upend a delicate status quo. The Prime Minister’s Office, however, said there was no change to existing norms.
As the Flag March reached its conclusion at the Western Wall, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip before the large crowd.
“Are we afraid of the word ‘occupation?’” the far-right minister asked the crowd, which responded with a chorus of “no.”
סמוטריץ' בעצרת יום ירושלים בכותל: אנחנו לא מפחדים מהמילה כיבוש. משחררים את עזה – ומיישבים אותה@inbartvizer pic.twitter.com/JaAIcIH9XC
— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) May 26, 2025
“Are we settling the Land of Israel? Are we liberating Gaza?” he shouted, to cheers of approval from among the tens of thousands gathered at the holy site. “We are triumphing over the enemy!”
‘Fringes of the fringes’
Police chief Levy arrived to Damascus Gate as masses were making their way into the Old City’s Muslim Quarter that evening.
The top cop told the Kan public broadcaster that “on the fringes of the fringes, there are a handful of people who try to harm the joy and ceremoniousness” of the parade, but that “99% is passing quietly.”
When asked about the anti-Arab refrains and songs heard from marchers, he told i24News that he did not hear any racist songs. “Maybe I didn’t hear them because I’m an artilleryman,” he said jokingly.
Two of the clashes between right-wing Jewish youth and Palestinians involved pepper spray, police said Monday.
Near Damascus Gate in the morning, a Palestinian youth pepper-sprayed a crowd of Jewish revelers during a scuffle. According to eyewitnesses, police detained the Palestinian.
A policeman was also seen dragging away a religious teenager towards the exit from the Old City in the incident’s aftermath.
The teenage masses soon broke out into chanting “death to Arabs.” Some shoved an elderly Palestinian man as he tried to make his way through the crowd.
One of the celebrants, an adolescent, attempted to prevent the reporter from filming the scene.
Jerusalem Day in the Old City, religious Zionist youth chanting "death to Arabs" pic.twitter.com/xgACdi5Y8v
— charlie summers (@cbsu03) May 26, 2025
Later, a Palestinian man was pepper-sprayed by a group of Jewish marchers outside Herod’s Gate, according to local Arabic media.
Revelers also made their way to the Christian Quarter. It was there that police detained a Palestinian man after he attempted to chase after a few dozen religious Zionist youth with his belt in hand, which happened after they attacked another shopkeeper in his vicinity.
The Palestinian man, who appeared to be drunk, repeatedly fell to the ground as he tried to resist being detained, as police officers roughed him up.
Police arrest Palestinian man in Christian Quarter after he attemps to chase group of religious Zionist youth with belt in hand. Man appears to be drunk.
Bystanders complain that police declined to arrest dozens of right wing agitators who attacked a Palestinian moments earlier pic.twitter.com/lm7BPTejNJ
— charlie summers (@cbsu03) May 26, 2025
Bystanders complained that the group of officers, while arresting him, paid no attention to the large group of agitators who ran away after attacking a middle-aged man outside a barber shop.
Also on the scene were purple-vested volunteers with the left-wing Standing Together movement, who tried to restrain the man from chasing the youth.
They were operating as part of a self-styled “humanitarian guard” with the aim of “escorting and protecting Palestinian residents and businesses from attacks by participants in the Flag March.”
Right-wing Jewish youth scuffled with the left-wing activists as well, deriding them as “traitors.”
Several other groups organized similar initiatives, though most left-wing activists had been kicked out of the Old City by police come early afternoon.
Sam Sokol contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.