Tens of thousands of ultra-nationalist Israeli youths marched through the Old City of Jerusalem on Thursday with cries of “Death to Arabs” and “May your villages burn” during the nationalist Flag March, while far-right politicians raised the Israeli flag on the Temple Mount and called to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Temple as they marked Jerusalem Day.

Jerusalem Day, which commemorates the reunification of the city under Israeli rule in the 1967 Six Day War, has largely become an event associated with the religious Zionist community. The march, which runs through the Muslim Quarter and ends at the Western Wall, has frequently descended into violence amid anti-Arab chants and racist provocations.

This year was no different.

Several far-right politicians, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, set the tone for the day, ascending the Temple Mount before the Flag March began. The ultranationalist police minister, who leads the Otzma Yehudit party, went to the flashpoint site alongside his fellow party member MK Yitzhak Kroizer. The pair waved an Israeli flag in front of the Dome of the Rock shrine, which, along with the rest of the mount, is administered by the Jordanian-controlled Jerusalem Waqf.

“We restored governance on the Temple Mount thanks to determination and deterrence. This year, Ramadan was the quietest, thanks to deterrence. The Temple Mount is in our hands,” Ben Gvir declared, before dancing and singing with the flag.

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Kroizer was also seen prostrating toward the Dome of the Rock alongside his children and father, Yehuda Kroizer, a prominent Kahanist rabbi. “The time has come to get rid of all the mosques and work to construct the Temple!” Kroizer later wrote on Facebook.


National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir waves the Israeli flag as he tours the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City during Jerusalem Day celebrations on May 14, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The Temple Mount is the holiest place in Judaism, as the site of the two biblical temples. Revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, it is home to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, and the iconic Dome of the Rock shrine.

Though Jews are ostensibly barred from praying at the site, the Israeli police, under the auspices of Ben Gvir, have increasingly tolerated prayer there, sparking repeated condemnations from Arab countries.

The Temple Mount has often been a flashpoint for regional violence.

Marchers chant ‘Death to Arabs’

At the march,  the anti-Arab chant “may your village burn” was heard many times throughout the day. Some young men passed out decals calling for Jewish settlement in Gaza, and many celebrants wore stickers calling for Palestinians to be expelled from the territory.


Israeli youths walk through the streets of the Old City, shouting slogans as they gather to participate in a march marking Jerusalem Day, celebrating the capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War, in Jerusalem, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Marchers put up stickers on shuttered storefronts lauding the death penalty law championed by Ben Gvir, which mandates the punishment for Palestinians convicted of lethal terror attacks, as well as the extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated the expulsion of Arabs from the historic land of Israel.

The handful of Palestinian residents who dared open their shops in the morning had closed by mid-afternoon, vacating the area entirely. Revelers thronging the Muslim Quarter repeatedly called for “Death to Arabs” and “revenge” against Palestinians while waving Israeli flags.

On Thursday, the crowd could also be heard chanting “Muhammad is dead,” in reference to the Muslim prophet and founder of Islam.

Jewish shop owners whose businesses are on the Flag March route posted signs on their property meant to protect it from ultranationalist vandals. One cardboard sign placed over an ATM read, “Belongs to a Jew. Do not damage. Thank you.”

Many of the revelers had been attending the event in groups affiliated with religious Zionist yeshivas, schools and youth movements. As marchers gathered near the US embassy before setting out to the Old City, small scuffles also broke out between boys from rival yeshivas.


Israelis celebrate at Damascus Gate during the annual Jerusalem Day march commemorating Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, in Jerusalem’s Old City, Thursday, May 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Corre)

Yehonatan Sopher, 21, said he has been participating in the annual march since coming with his family as a child. This year, he said he came with fellow students at a Jewish seminary where he studies in northern Israel, spending the night in prayer and Torah study before traveling to Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem is one of the most meaningful things in our religion,” he said. “It’s the root of everything.” He dismissed the racist chants as the acts of a small minority of participants.

Police said they arrested 13 suspects involved in altercations and violence over the course of the day, claiming such incidents were “isolated.”


Scuffles near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City, during Jerusalem Day, May 14, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Reporters attacked

Before the official march began, mobs of right-wing teenagers roved about the Old City, kicking and spitting on reporters while trying to steal their phones as they covered the event.

A horde of teenagers spat on this reporter while trying to steal his phone as he filmed the main route in the Muslim Quarter, succeeding in knocking the device to the ground.

Later, outside the Old City, members of the same group identified and trailed after a Times of Israel reporter, again attempting to steal the phone while kicking and wishing death upon him.

Before the official Jerusalem Day Flag March, religious Zionist youth chant “death to Arabs,” try to cover up my phone camera lens.

The Old City is largely empty aside from extremist youth and reporters. Palestinian residents have locked themselves inside their homes pic.twitter.com/LyNYBcG9uA

— charlie summers (@cbsu03) May 14, 2026

Left-wing activists who came to the area in a bid to escort and protect Palestinian shopkeepers were also subjected to harassment and violence.

Scuffles broke out when groups of young marchers entered the Old City before the start of the march, encountering Palestinians in the Christian Quarter. They threw chairs at each other. Activists from Standing Together — a left-wing Israeli-Palestinian coexistence group thar came to the Old City in a bid to escort and protect Palestinian shopkeepers from far-right violence — moved in to try to stop the confrontation, video circulated by the organization showed.

The volunteers, identifiable by their purple vests, were kicked out of the area by police.


Police remove left wing activists near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City, during Jerusalem Day, May 14, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

“[Police] choose to remove us [from the Old City], but right next to us, a group of settlers passed by while shouting ‘death to Arabs’ and the police don’t do anything,” said Alon Lee Green, one of the movement’s founders, as officers shoved him toward the Old City’s exit.

Accusing law enforcement of bias toward the nationalist revelers, he continued: “Us, with the purple vests, who are trying to stand up against the violence, the police decide to remove violently.”

“When we put our bodies on the line, it oftentimes reduces the violence because settlers are less willing to attack when there are Jews there or when we document what’s going on,” said Ori Shaham, the group’s international spokesperson.

Another group opposed to extremist Jewish violence called Tag Meir held an annual “flower march” before the crowds descended, handing out flowers to shopkeepers before they closed early.

Mustafa, a Palestinian resident of the Old City’s Via Dolorosa, said young ultranationalist Israelis had broken into the courtyard of his home, breaking glass and chanting “Death to Arabs.”


An Israeli left-wing activist hands a flower to a Palestinian woman from the old city in Jerusalem ahead of Jerusalem Day parade on May 14, 2026. (Photo by ilia YEFIMOVICH / AFP)

“This is a black day… I was inside the home when around 20 settlers came inside, they broke the doors,” he told AFP.

“If you push them, you’ll go to prison… you can’t do anything,” he said.

While most of the men and youths marched to the Western Wall via Damascus Gate, many women took an alternate route that skirts the Muslim Quarter and enters the Old City through Jaffa Gate, among them teenagers draped in Israeli flags and parents carrying babies in their arms.

The march culminated with a mass gathering at the Western Wall.


Israelis celebrate Jerusalem Day at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem on the eve of Jerusalem Day, May 14, 2026.(Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

“It’s an extraordinary atmosphere,” said Isabelle, 59, who drove two-and-a-half hours to watch the sea of blue and white flags.

Reuven, 37, who attended with his young son, said: “Christians and Muslims can stay here, but this city, one united city, belongs to the Jews.”

To make way for the marchers, police closed several roads to traffic, including the main thoroughfare between West and East Jerusalem.


Israelis celebrate Jerusalem Day at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem on the eve of Jerusalem Day, May 14, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

In the afternoon, police announced they had arrested a man who allegedly planned to carry out a terror attack during the Jerusalem Day celebrations.

Undercover Border Police officers tracked the suspect down to a car wash in Abu Tor, a mixed Jewish-Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem, where they apprehended him and passed him to the Shin Bet for interrogation.