WSJ Newspaper Reported Thousands of Israelis March

WSJ Newspaper.- “We will not surrender to terrorism, not in Evyatar and not in Tel Aviv,” Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said at Monday’s march, according to a video released by his office. “We are here to say: The people of Israel are strong.”

The far-right leader was joined by six other ministers and 20 lawmakers from the ruling coalition, according to the organizers, which political analysts say is the most right-wing and religious in Israel’s history. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government came to power in late December, promising, among other things, to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Monday’s march comes at a fragile moment. Tensions have soared around Jerusalem recently as Jews, Muslims, and Christians celebrate overlapping holidays—the Passover festival, the holy month of Ramadan, and Easter—drawing tens of thousands of visitors to the Old City’s holy sites.

Israel’s security forces called up reinforcements after clashes last week between Israeli police and Palestinians at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al Aqsa Mosque compound sparked a flurry of rocket attacks by militants from Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. Israel responded by carrying out airstrikes against what it called militant targets in those areas.

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Israeli police said Monday that Muslim prayers at the Al Aqsa mosque compound and visits by non-Muslims to the site, also revered by Jews as the location of two ancient Jewish temples, occurred without any security incidents.

Tensions also spiked in recent days after suspected Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel. On Monday, the mother of two Israeli-British sisters killed by gunmen in the West Bank late last week died of her wounds sustained in the same attack.

Separately on Monday, a 15-year-old Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces who raided the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp in Jericho, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said that it raided the camp to arrest a suspected terrorist but that it was forced to use lethal force after it was met with violence from Palestinians, who hurled explosive devices and Molotov cocktails at the Israeli soldiers.

Israelis and Palestinians are living through one of the deadliest periods in years. At least 94 Palestinians have been killed since January, including both militants and civilians, according to a tally by The Wall Street Journal. At least 18 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, all civilians except for one police officer.

The march to the Evyatar outpost drew controversy in Israel as it called upon Israel’s already stretched-thin security forces to safeguard the marchers by peeling away a large group of soldiers that are monitoring the country and its borders for more potential attacks.

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Yossi Dagan, the head of a leading settler umbrella organization that organized the march, said that establishing new settlements in the West Bank would be a “victory of the people of Israel over terrorism.”

Evyatar is one of around 40 such outposts built in the West Bank without permits in recent years, according to the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now. While much of the international community considers all Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal, Israel has its own system of approvals for what it considers legal construction in the occupied territory, where several hundred thousand Israeli settlers live among millions of Palestinians.