What is Jerusalem Day and the March of Flags?

This week, Israelis will commemorate Jerusalem Day, a national holiday marking the occupation of East Jerusalem by Israeli forces after the 1967 war.

During the holiday and in the days leading up to it, Israelis commemorate soldiers who died during the battle for Jerusalem, which they say led to the reunification of the city under Israeli control.

However, the event has also been criticised as a rallying point for ultra-nationalist Israelis and attacks on Palestinians.

According to the website of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Jerusalem Day (or Yom Yerushalayim in Hebrew) has been celebrated since 1968, when lawmakers decided to commemorate the occupation of the Palestinian neighbourhoods in the city.

Immediately after the 1967 war, Israel annexed the parts of Jerusalem it had occupied and granted Palestinians inhabitants residency, allowing them to vote in municipal elections but not national ones.

Today, an estimated 350,000 Palestinians live in Jerusalem. Most are not Israeli citizens and cannot elect representatives to the Knesset. 

Jerusalem Day was enshrined as a national holiday by the Knesset in 1998, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed it into law during his first tenure.

This year, the Jerusalem Municipality has invited participants to "march with courage and valour, with Israeli flags raised high, and connect themselves with the celebration of Jerusalem’s eternity, and bind Jerusalem forever”.

It is being held the day before Palestinians commemorate the Nakba (or the Catastrophe in English), when an estimated 13,000 Palestinians were killed and 750,000 expelled and driven from their homes by Zionist and later Israeli militias in what historians have described as the ethnic cleansing of Palestine during the creation of Israel.

What happens during Jerusalem Day?

The focus of the holiday is the March of Flags, during which tens of thousands of ultra-nationalist Israelis and settlers march through the city waving Israeli flags.

"The participants hold a large march accompanied by songs, dancing, and the waving of flags," the Knesset website states. "The march sets out from the city centre, enters the Old City, and ends at the Western Wall with a mass thanksgiving prayer."

However, during the rally, far-right Israelis chant racist remarks, attack Palestinian residents and vandalise their property in the Old City.

The March of Flags is also an opportunity for far-right Israeli figures to voice their views.

Last year, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said at the end of the march that "we are not afraid of victory", referring to Israel's war on Gaza.

"Are we afraid of victory? Are we afraid of the word ‘occupation’?" he told the crowd that gathered near the Western Wall, months before the Gaza ceasefire went into effect in October 2025.

The marches have come amid growing incursions by Israeli settlers into the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir since he took office in 2022.

"I came back here to send a message to Hamas and to every home in Gaza and in the north: Jerusalem is ours. Damascus Gate is ours. The Temple Mount is ours,” Ben Gvir said during the 2024 march.

"Jews entered the Old City freely, and Jews prayed freely on the Temple Mount. We are saying in the clearest and simplest way: it is ours."

Last year, police under Ben Gvir’s authority secured the march with more than 3,000 officers, allowing participants to pass through the Damascus Gate, the streets in the Old City and the Western Wall.

"The march passes through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, while many participants provoke and even attack the Palestinian residents of the quarter," Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reported.

What have critics said about the March of the Flags?

The Israeli left-wing independent news outlet Local Call has described the march as "a display of racism and violence under police protection”.

In 2024, the outlet reported that while "the racist chants" had previously been limited to fringe groups, they had become "more and more widespread and were heard from nearly every group" amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

B’Tselem has also criticised the event, describing the March of Flags (or "The Flag Dance”, as it calls it) as “an example of Jewish supremacy: thousands of Israelis celebrate provocatively, while the city’s Palestinian residents are forced to close their shops and remain at home out of fear of violence".

One journalist told the group in 2023, before the Gaza genocide, that "groups of Jews threw stones, plastic water bottles, and broken flag poles at us", adding that at least two reporters were hit by rioters.

"I was afraid that if I moved away, the marchers would attack me again, and I didn’t want to take the risk. I waited until the march ended, and around 9pm I left the area."

Uri Erlich, spokesperson for Emek Shaveh, an Israeli NGO working to defend cultural heritage rights and to protect ancient sites, said: "In recent years, and especially over the past two years, something has changed. It is not the march that has become more extreme, but society."

Where else is Jerusalem Day celebrated?

This year's march comes amid reports that the government intends to change the city's boundaries for the first time since East Jerusalem's annexation in 1967, expanding them further into Palestinian areas of the occupied West Bank.

In addition, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported last month that the government will set aside more than 1 million shekels ($344,000) to fund flag marches led by Israeli settlers in other cities across the country.

The programme aims to reinforce "a sense of connection and identification with Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, even among those who do not live in it”.

Marches are expected to take place in Lod, Ramla and Haifa, which are home to large Palestinian communities. Additional marches are planned in Yavne, Ashdod, Beersheba, Herzliya, Petah Tikva and Raanana. 

It will not be the first time the event has been held outside the city.

In recent years, Israelis marched with flags in cities such as Lod and Jaffa, causing tension with Palestinian communities.