Viewed objectively, the escalation that some feared did not occur in Jerusalem or Gaza on Tuesday evening. The nationalist so-called flag march of Jewish racists, the climax of which was the gathering at Damascus Gate in the Arab part of Jerusalem, did not attract as many people as the extremists had hoped. A few thousand people came together, mostly male youths, from whose ranks the shouts “Death to the Arabs”, “Your village should burn” or “Mohammed is dead” rang out. They represent a small, radical minority that is disproportionately heard in the media and politically. Israel's new Foreign Minister, Jair Lapid, wrote on Twitter, "These people are a disgrace to the Israeli people".
The Jerusalem police did not announce any arrests for sedition.
There were also hardly any clashes because the security forces had previously largely denied Arab-Palestinian residents access to the area in question.
At least 17 arrested Palestinian counter-demonstrators were reported.
Flags of Palestine have been confiscated.
Jochen Stahnke
Political correspondent for Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan based in Tel Aviv.
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The ranks of the militant Hamas in the Gaza Strip had threatened to react to the event with new attacks.
Ultimately, however, the Islamist movement left it under pressure from Egyptian mediators to let balloons with incendiary devices fly from Gaza into the immediate vicinity in Israel, which occasionally set fields on fire.
Israel reportedly meant to Hamas through Egypt that rocket attacks would be harshly rewarded, but they did not wish to escalate the situation.
Only training grounds bombed
In response to the fire balloons, Israel then attacked Hamas' military training ground on Wednesday night, which was also rather insignificant. People were not harmed. It looked almost like the usual military type of communication of the past few years. After the recent short war, the armed forces and the new government announced that from now on the type of deterrent strategy would change and one would react tougher. The new opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu should now remind the new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of this on a regular basis.
According to Israeli commentators, the organizers of the flag march in Jerusalem, which was also attended by two Knesset MPs from the extremist religious Zionism party in coalition with Netanyahu, had hoped for more.
According to the military correspondent for the newspaper "Haaretz", a march date was originally envisaged last week shortly before the vote on the new government under Naftali Bennett, who is also in coalition with an Arab party.
The aim was to escalate the situation in Jerusalem and bring about a violent reaction by the Islamists from Gaza and overthrow the government.
It didn't come to that.
The march was rescheduled to the Tuesday after the swearing-in, not least due to pressure from the security apparatus, and has now been approved by the security minister Omer Bar Lev (Labor Party), who had just taken office.
The situation between Israel and Hamas remains tense. The indirect negotiations for a more resilient ceasefire are dragging on. Hamas is calling for the resumption of cash payments from Qatar, which the emirate's envoy had regularly driven to Gaza via Israel before the war. So far, Israel has not allowed this to happen again. It also keeps the transition to Gaza restricted for the movement of goods. Israel does not want to get back into the same starting position as it was before the war, but Hamas is threatening attacks if the crossings are not reopened. The new government in Jerusalem faces delicate decisions.