RAMALLAH: The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS) Wednesday evening condemned the attacks by Israeli colonists on photojournalists during the ‘Flag March’ in the occupied city of Jerusalem.

The PJS decried Israeli colonists’ assaults on Palestinian and international photojournalists and media personnel in the course of the ‘Flag March’. According to Dyala Jweihan, a photojournalist, supremacist Jewish colonists assaulted dozens of media personnel, beating them with sticks and hurling stones at them after the latter were prevented by police from standing at their designated place.

Among the assaulted media personnel were Saif al-Qawasmi, Layali Abu Eid and Ghassan Abu Eid.

Thousands of supremacist Jewish colonists, under tightened police protection, gathered outside the Bab al-Amoud (Damascus Gate), typically a gathering place for Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem, chanted anti-Arab and anti-Islamic racist slogans, performed loud songs and dances and waved Israeli flags as the procession kicked o
ff.

Just before the march began, crowds scuffled with police and threw plastic bottles at a journalist wearing a vest with the word PRESS emblazoned on it. Some chanted ‘Muhammad is dead!’ referring to the Islamic prophet.

The so-called ‘Flag March’ is organized by Israeli Jewish supremacists to celebrate Israel’s occupation and colonization of East Jerusalem since 1967.

The annual Flag March usually see thousands of right-wing Israeli settlers, under police protection, carrying machine guns, waving Israeli flags, dancing, singing and descending on Jerusalem to celebrate the so-called unification of the city, including the hotbed Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Bab al-Amoud and the Muslim Quarter of the Old City on their way to the Wailing Wall, as Palestinians are forced to close their stores.

Palestinian maintain that the provocative Jerusalem Day events are meant to intimidate Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and reflect Israel’s policies of settler-colonialism, ethnic cleansing and expuls
ions of the Palestinian population.

Although Palestinians in East Jerusalem, a part of the internationally recognized Palestinian Territory that has been subject to Israeli military occupation since 1967, they are denied their citizenship rights and are instead classified only as “residents” whose permits can be revoked if they move away from the city for more than a few years.

They are also discriminated against in all aspects of life including housing, employment and services, and are unable to access services in the West Bank due to the construction of Israel’s separation wall.

Source: Palestine news & Information Agency – WAFA