The flag parade in Jerusalem was first organized in 1968, by Rabbi Yehuda Hazani of the yeshiva known as Mirkaz Harav-Rabbi Center, and has become an annual tradition.
The march is organized on what is known as “Jerusalem Day,” in which Israel – according to the Hebrew calendar – commemorates the occupation of the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967, which it calls the day of the unification of Jerusalem and the establishment of Israeli and Jewish sovereignty over the city and the Jewish religious places therein.
The number of participants in the march has increased from year to year, and is now estimated in the tens of thousands, most of them calling themselves religious patriots from Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank settlements, and throughout Israel.
The occupation forces force Palestinians to close their shops at the same time as the march passes through the Old City, where participants provocatively attack Palestinian homes and shops, shout slogans of “Death to the Arabs” and dance carrying Israeli flags.
The march is funded by the “Am Kalpiya” religious settlement association, the Jerusalem municipality, the Israeli Ministry of Education, and the Jewish Quarter Development and Rehabilitation Company, and the amount of funding in 2018 reached about 300 thousand dollars.
Between the years 2010 and 2016, the Israeli occupation police prevented march participants from entering the Old City through Lions Gate.
In 2011, the Israeli occupation police diverted the route of the march to pass from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood through Street No. 1, which separates the western and eastern parts of Jerusalem, and allowed its participants to enter the Old City through several doors.
In 2017, on the 50th anniversary of the occupation of Jerusalem, participants in the march were allowed to circumambulate the walls of the Old City and also enter it through the Moroccan Gate.
Between 2015 and 2016, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected petitions submitted by Israeli left-wing and human rights organizations to prevent the march from passing through the Muslim Quarter.
In 2021, under the threat of the Palestinian resistance, the Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu prevented the march from passing through Damascus Gate and diverted it to Hebron Gate, but the Palestinian resistance fired a batch of rockets towards Jerusalem, which forced the Israeli security services to immediately disperse the march, and it broke out as a result. Operation Saif al-Quds, according to the Palestinian name, “Guardian of the Walls,” according to the Israeli name.
Following the end of the war on Gaza, the flag march was reorganized on June 15, 2021, within the traditional path. This was considered the first important decision of the new government in Israel headed by Naftali Bennett. She passed through the Damascus Gate amidst a state of intense tension and anticipation.
In 2022 and 2023, the occupation police command approved organizing the march along its traditional route, with the number of participants estimated at about 70,000, the vast majority of whom passed from Damascus Gate to the Buraq Wall.
The Israeli occupation police are mobilizing about 3,000 personnel to secure the route of the march. In previous years, as in 2022, it called in 3 Border Guard battalions from the reserve ranks, in addition to deploying thousands of police personnel throughout Israel for fear of any security deterioration. It was announced that the police would move to High alert.
In 2022, the Israeli army expanded the scope of the Iron Dome system’s deployment around Jerusalem and in several areas of central and southern Israel in anticipation of the Palestinian resistance launching rockets at the time of the march.
