Israeli police stop Jewish nationalist march in Jerusalem amid rising tensions

Israeli police on Wednesday blocked hundreds of far-right Jewish protesters from marching toward Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, the main entrance to the Old City’s Muslim quarter, amid rising tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.

Confrontations in Jerusalem’s Old City pose the risk of a relapse into a broader conflagration like last year’s 11-day Israel-Gaza war, in which more than 250 Palestinians in Gaza and 13 people in Israel were killed.

Several hundred protesters carrying Israeli flags began marching from a square near Jerusalem’s municipality, according to a Reuters witness, in defiance of police orders and despite condemnation by several Israeli leaders.