Tens of thousands of predominantly young, right-wing Israelis marched through the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem On Wednesday they waved Israeli flags and anti-Palestinian slogans against the people in the Muslim quarter.

The Old City was prepared for the violence it has unfortunately become accustomed to in previous demonstrations, when protesters physically attacked people, including Palestinian market-goers and journalists, in an effort to assert what they saw as Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory.

But this year, about 60 activists from the Jewish-Palestinian activist group “Standing Together” stood in the way of the far-right demonstrators to protect innocent bystanders.

An unfortunate, angry “victory march”

The flag march is part of the larger Jerusalem Day in Israel and has grown in popularity since 1967, when some religious students accompanied the ultra-Orthodox nationalist Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook through the streets of Jerusalem to commemorate the capture of the city from Jordanian forces.

The event has since grown; in 2022, up to 70,000 participants were counted as gangs of ultra-nationalist Israeli youths rampaged through the Old City.

More than 160 Palestinians were injured, including some who were hit by police live ammunition. Many had to be treated in hospital.

The route itself, which specifically leads through the Muslim quarter of the old town, has long been controversial.

Starting at the Great Synagogue in central Jerusalem, demonstrators parade through the city singing and dancing, accompanied by orchestras playing yeshiva music from the back of trucks, before entering the Old City through either the Dung Gate or the Damascus Gate.

They then continue through the Muslim Quarter to reach the Western Wall.

The number of participants for Wednesday's march has yet to be determined.

However, film footage shows thousands of mostly young men rioting through the streets and targeting the population and journalists.

Hundreds of thugs arrived in Jerusalem on transport from the settlements to riot in the Old City and attack Palestinian shops under the eyes of the police. The activists of the Humanitarian Guard have been standing in front of them since the early hours of the morning to document, provide a protective presence and force the police to do their duty.
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– Standing together 🟣 (@omdimbeyachad) June 5, 2024

“Hundreds of thugs arrived in Jerusalem in vans from the settlements to riot in the Old City and attack Palestinian shops in front of the police. The activists of the humanitarian guard have been standing in front of them since the early hours of the morning to document, provide protection and force the police to do their duty.”

Standing together

Standing Together co-director Alon Lee Green, 36, said he was confronted by the school-age protesters, who arrived by bus from religious institutions across Israel and the occupied West Bank to march in Jerusalem.

“They shouted things at me like, 'You should be killed by Hamas,'” he said.

Some activists in the group were slapped and many were pushed around. Fortunately, none of them required medical attention, confirmed Lee Green.

“We were particularly concerned about the Palestinian activists who were with us,” he said. “They had chosen to place themselves between the extreme right and the Palestinians of the Old City.”

“That’s incredibly brave.”

In addition to the thousands of far-right Jews who flooded the Old City of East Jerusalem yesterday, about 3,000 police officers were deployed in the area, ostensibly to maintain order.

But according to Standing Together, the tendency of security forces to support settlers and Jews in confrontations with Palestinians has reached new extremes since the appointment of far-right provocateur Itamar Ben-Gvir as minister of national security two years ago.

“As minister, Ben-Gvir should not exercise control over the police at any level beyond general strategy, but he does,” Lee Green continued.

“Everyone, from the police chief down, knows that their success or failure depends on Ben-Gvir’s support.

“He reshaped the police in his own image. We lost them.”

When Ben-Gvir spoke to the crowds before the march, his intention was clear.

Addressing an energetic, flag-waving crowd, he said the purpose of this year's march was to send a message to Hamas: “Jerusalem is ours.”

Earlier on the same day, Israeli media reported that about 1,600 Jewish pilgrims had entered the grounds of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

According to the current legal status of the site and a rabbinical prohibition, Jews are prohibited from praying there.

Nevertheless, one Jewish activist reportedly wore tefillin, leather straps wrapped around the forearms, as he walked around the compound, an act of worship that violates Israeli law.

Later that day, Ben-Gvir spoke on Galei Israel radio, contradicting both existing laws and the prime minister. He told his listeners: “I am also happy that the Jews went to the Temple Mount today and prayed there,” he said. “This is very important. My policy on this issue is very clear: Jews can be anywhere in Jerusalem and pray anywhere.”

The growing extremes

Across Israel, the influence of figures such as Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also deviates from the hard line and took part in yesterday's march, is growing.

They were historical outsiders in previous governments, but growing support for hardliners across much of society has catapulted their agenda to the center of Israeli politics and established them as an effective bloc. US ceasefire proposals and calls for the current attack on Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

In recent weeks, Ben-Gvir has used his influence over the police to allow the looting of aid convoys to Gaza – a campaign led by the far right.

Standing Together, an organization that has helped protect aid convoys to Palestine, said it witnessed police complicity in the attacks.

Many of those attacking the convoys are religious Zionists who envision a future for Israel without Palestinians and therefore support a policy of settlement building and violence against Palestinians, says Sally Abed, an activist with the organization Standing Together.

Such groups have gained strength under Israel's current government, the most right-wing in the country's history.

“They are the extreme of extremes,” Abed said.

“The police have completely overlooked or neglected it. It is a complete collaboration,” she added.

Abed's statement was confirmed by Rachel Touitou, spokeswoman for Tvaz9, one of the main groups behind the attacks, who confirmed to Al Jazeera that the group acted on information from security forces.

Abed said that while settler groups like Tvaz9 are not the same as the groups that have carried out violent attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, there is an ideological connection between them.

Push back.

Nevertheless, Standing Together activists are busy in East Jerusalem on Thursday morning removing many traces of yesterday's right-wing extremist provocations.

Stickers reading “Mohammed is dead” are being removed from old stone walls, competing for space with graffiti and other stickers reading “Kahane lives,” referring to a former ultranationalist rabbi convicted of terrorism.

The number of hardliners and ultra-Orthodox Christians is growing, Lee Green admitted, but “they remain a minority. A large one, that's true, but a minority nonetheless.”

“Despite all the noise, you have to remember that there are only about 500,000 settlers in the West Bank,” he said. “We are outnumbered. We just need to organize around a single idea and fight back.”

Standing Together's membership has exploded since the start of the Gaza war, making the organization a growing force in the country, Lee Green added.

“This is a fight. It is a fight for society,” he said. “If we win, we will get a new country in which Israelis and Palestinians can live freely and with equal rights.”