Tension soars as Israelis march through east Jerusalem, Gaza bombing intensifies and rockets land from Lebanon

Jerusalem – Thousands of Israeli nationalists marched Wednesday through East Jerusalem as authorities deployed police with tensions running high nearly eight months later. Gaza War. That war appeared to be intensifying in Gaza, and far-right nationalists organized their annual march – long considered a provocation by Palestinians – in Jerusalem.

The so-called Jerusalem Day flag march commemorates the capture by the Israeli army, in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, of the eastern sector of the city, which is home to the Al-Aqsa mosque complex, the third holiest site in Islam. Jews call it the Temple Mount.

Thousands of Jewish nationalists, including far-right activists, marched through the predominantly Arab neighborhoods of the Old City, waving Israeli national flags, dancing and occasionally shouting inflammatory or racist slogans.

“This is my country. I own it here. I’m the boss here, there is no Palestine,” shouted one participant as he walked past a group of journalists.

Since Wednesday morning, police have set up roadblocks near Damascus Gate after announcing plans to deploy more than 3,000 officers throughout the day. Most shops in the Old City were closed before the march began, as the streets slowly emptied of Palestinians and filled with young Israelis, some of whom carried weapons.

Young people waving large Israeli flags and shouting “The people of Israel live” were seen near Jaffa Gate, and some wore T-shirts reading “My land, I don’t want to divide it.”

Some far-right protesters fought with a journalist in the sector’s Muslim neighborhood, according to an AFP correspondent. Many threw empty water bottles at reporters covering the event at Damascus Gate, some of which were taken away by police.

For many Palestinians, the route through predominantly Arab neighborhoods is seen as a deliberate provocation. Palestinians claim the eastern sector of the city as the capital of the your expected future state.

A man who gave his name as Ibrahim said: “Stores should not close their doors and should not allow settlers to take over the city. All Arabs must be in Jerusalem today.”

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said at the march: “We sent a message to Hamas. Jerusalem is ours. The Damascus Gate is ours. The Temple Mount is ours.”

“With God’s help, total victory is ours,” he said, referring to Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as crowds cheered.

Hamas warned Israel in a statement on Wednesday “against the consequences of continuing these criminal policies against our sanctities, at the center of which is the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque”, and the group called on Palestinians “to make today, Wednesday fair, a day of anger.”

This year’s march took place nearly eight months after Hamas launched its Oct. 7 terrorist attack, which killed about 1,200 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to Israeli officials, and triggered the war in Gaza.

That retaliatory offensive in the densely populated Palestinian enclave killed at least 36,550 people, most of them civilians, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-administered territory.

There were signs this week that, along with increased clashes along Israel’s northern border with the Lebanese group Hezbollah – an ally of Hamas that is, like the Gaza-based group, supported by Iran – the offensive in the Gaza is intensifying.

Israeli officials said 11 people were injured, including one critically, when rockets from southern Lebanon hit the northern village of Hurfeish.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited the region earlier in the day, warned that his government was prepared to take “very strong measures” against Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday it has taken “operational control” of two areas in central Gaza, while continuing to carry out ground operations and airstrikes across the territory.

The army said it was fighting “above and below ground” in the east of the city of Deir al-Balah and the Bureij refugee camp.

CBS News visited Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah on Wednesday morning and doctors said it had received 74 bodies in the previous 24 hours.

CBS News’ Marwan al-Ghoul said shelling at the Bureij camp and elsewhere in central Gaza was nonstop, sending refugees fleeing for safety.