JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of mostly ultranationalist Israelis were expected to take part in an annual march through a dense Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday in an event that often sees racist chants and brawls.

Jerusalem, the epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has been mostly calm throughout the Israel-Hamas war, but the march could ignite widespread tensions, as it did three years ago, when it helped set off an 11-day war in Gaza.

The current war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel responded with a massive offensive that has killed over 36,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, displaced most of the territory’s population and caused widespread destruction.

The United States has thrown its weight behind a phased cease-fire and hostage release outlined by President Joe Biden last week. But Israel says it won’t end the war without destroying Hamas, while the militant group is demanding a lasting cease-fire and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.

The annual march commemorates “Jerusalem Day,” which marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital, but its annexation of east Jerusalem is not internationally recognized. The Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, see the march as a provocation.

In past years, police have forcibly cleared Palestinians from the parade route, and large crowds of mostly ultranationalist youth have chanted “Death to Arabs,” “May your village burn” and other offensive slogans. The police say they are deploying 3,000 security personnel to ensure calm.

At the insistence of Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the march will follow its traditional route, entering the Muslim Quarter through Damascus Gate and ending at the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray.

As buses bringing young Jewish men in for the march thronged around the Old City’s centuries-old walls, Palestinian shopkeepers closed down in the Muslim Quarter in preparation.

The police stressed that the march would not enter the sprawling Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam. The hilltop on which it stands is the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of the Jewish temples in antiquity.

Perceived encroachments on the site have set off widespread violence on a number of occasions going back decades.

Counterprotests were planned throughout the day. An Israeli group, Tag Meir, sent volunteers through the emptying city streets ahead of the march to distribute flowers to Christian and Muslim residents of the Old City.

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A member of the German right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) running in this weekend’s local elections was stabbed on Tuesday in the city of Mannheim, the same city where an immigrant from Afghanistan stabbed several people just a few days ago including a police officer who later died from his injuries. 

Last night’s attack took place close to the market square when the candidate spotted somebody trying to tear down an election poster, the German news agency dpa reported on Wednesday.

The candidate confronted that person, who then stabbed him with a knife. Dpa reported that the candidate is in a hospital with non-life-threatening cuts.

The attacker was detained, dpa reported.

ANTI-ISLAM ACTIVIST STABBED IN GERMANY ATTACK CAUGHT ON VIDEO

“We are shocked and dismayed,” local AfD leader, Markus Frohnmaier, told dpa.

Malte Kaufmann, an AfD politician and member of the Bundestag, identified the victim on X as Heinrich Koch, and said he was “seriously injured with a carpet knife.” Officials have yet to confirm this. 

“The perpetrator was tearing down AfD election posters with two other people when he was caught by Mr Koch,” Kaufmann wrote, which has been translated into English.

“I wish my party colleague a lot of strength and a speedy recovery. This political violence must stop!”

GERMAN POLICE OFFICER WHO WAS STABBED BY AFGHAN IMMIGRANT HAS DIED

A migrant with a knife stabbed multiple people on May 31 in Mannheim, Germany, video showed. (Buergerbewegung Pax Europa)

The incident comes about a week after an Afghan migrant went on a stabbing spree in Mannheim, which is located in the southwest of Germany.

The migrant attacked and wounded Anti-Islam activist Michael Stürzenberger and several others who are all members of the Buergerbewegung Pax Europa group, which describes itself as opposing “political Islam.”

One of the victims stabbed was a police officer who was placed in an artificial coma but succumbed to his injuries on Sunday. 

Police shot the migrant to halt his attack and he is now recovering from his injuries. 

German police officers commemorate a colleague in Mannheim, Germany, after he died on Sunday in a knife attack. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Last month, Franziska Giffey, Berlin’s top economic official, a former mayor and an ex-federal minister, was attacked at an event in a local library by a man who approached her from behind and hit her with a bag containing a hard device, police said.

A week before that, a candidate from the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz was beaten up in the eastern city of Dresden while campaigning for this week’s election for the European Parliament and had to undergo surgery.

Germans are preparing to vote in the local and European Parliament elections this weekend. European elections will take place across the 27 member states of the EU.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

The first technical assessment by an international organisation says the hostilities impede data collection to prove famine is under way in northern Gaza, preventing a formal declaration of it.

Famine is likely already under way in northern Gaza, an independent group of experts has warned in a new report.

“It is possible, if not likely,” that famine is already stalking the enclave, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) said as it released its report on Tuesday.

The continuing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, and the restrictions on humanitarian access to the enclave, have impeded the data collection to investigate the issue, the report, the first technical assessment by an international organisation, said.

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), FEWS NET is an internationally recognised authority on famine that provides evidence-based and timely early warning information for food insecurity.

It also helps inform decisions on humanitarian responses in some of the world’s most food-insecure countries.

A declaration of famine could be used as evidence at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and/or International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Israel faces allegations of genocide.

The group stated that for a formal declaration to be made, the data must be available, but it cautioned that data collection would likely be impeded as long as the war continues.

However, it noted that people are dying of hunger-related causes across the territory and that these conditions will likely persist until at least July if there is not a fundamental change in how food aid is distributed.

Impeded access

The report cautioned that efforts to increase aid into Gaza are insufficient, and urged Israel’s government to act urgently.

It was joined in this push this week by further statements calling for improved humanitarian relief from international agencies.

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said on Tuesday that delivering aid into Gaza “has become almost impossible”.

In #Gaza, delivering aid has become almost impossible. We are nowhere near where we need to be.

We need all border crossings open. We need safe and unimpeded access. We need to prioritize humanitarian aid.

My remarks at today’s @UN_Spokesperson briefing: https://t.co/ldBuHRHiow

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— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) June 4, 2024

“We are nowhere near where we need to be. We need all border crossings open. We need safe and unimpeded access. We need to prioritize humanitarian aid,” he wrote on X.

Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean regional director, said on the same day that some Gaza residents have been reduced to drinking sewage water and eating animal feed.

“Children are barely able to eat, while the trucks are standing outside of Rafah,” he said.

The UN has long warned that famine is looming in Gaza, with 1.1 million people – about half of the population – facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA on Tuesday said access constraints “continue to undermine the safe delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza”, and conditions “further deteriorated” in May.