Palestinian shopkeepers closed up early and police lined the narrow alleys of Jerusalem's Old City Monday, as Arab residents braced for an annual march that often becomes a rowdy and sometimes violent procession of ultranationalist Jews.
The march commemorating 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 — was set for later in the day. The event is threatening to inflame tensions that are already rife in the restive city amid nearly 600 days of war in Gaza.
