The police in Jerusalem were put on high alert, and police chief Kobi Shabtai ordered 3,000 additional forces into the city.

More than a hundred Palestinians were preemptively arrested.

And the American Embassy advises against entering the Old City this weekend.

Israel is tense ahead of "Jerusalem Day" on Sunday.

Christian Meier

Political correspondent for the Middle East and Northeast Africa.

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The flag march that nationalist groups are holding in Jerusalem's Old City to mark the occasion was one of the last links in a long chain of provocations last year.

At the time, Hamas responded to the march by firing several rockets towards Jerusalem.

The 11-day armed conflict that followed between the Israeli army and groups in the Gaza Strip cost the lives of more than 250 people.

Conflict over Al-Aqsa Plateau

Palestinian groups have been threatening Israel with shrill tones for days and warn of "provocations".

There is some, possibly intentional, ambiguity as to whether it is about the Old City of Jerusalem as a whole or just the Al-Aqsa Plateau, also known as the Temple Mount.

According to media reports, representatives of the "Islamic Jihad" group had let it be known that if the flag march leads through the Muslim part of Jerusalem's old town, "we will react".

However, Israeli radio station Kan reported on Friday that the groups in the Gaza Strip do not consider the route of the march itself to be a "red line" but only the entry of participants into the Al-Aqsa plateau.

Palestinians were urged to come to Jerusalem on Sunday to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Al-Aqsa plateau has recently become the focus of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There were repeated confrontations there during Ramadan.

The reason lies on the one hand in the high symbolic content of the place, which is central for Jews and Muslims alike.

As such, it lends itself to the mobilization of sentiment – ​​which contributes to further blurring the lines between nationalism and religion in the conflict.

The defense of Al-Aqsa has become a central motive and concern for many Palestinians, whether they are Muslim, Christian or secular.

Conversely, the Temple Mount is also playing an increasingly important role for Zionism and has contributed to the religious transformation of the originally more secular movement.

On the other hand, and related to this, an erosion of the status quo on the Al-Aqsa plateau can be observed.

The Palestinian warnings of "Zionist attacks" also refer to the fact that Jews have recently been regularly observed praying on the site - which is actually not allowed by the Israeli side either;

only Muslims are allowed to pray there.

However, the legal situation has not been adequately clarified, even decades after Israel captured the Old City in the Six-Day War in 1967.

A court decision caused unrest

Only on Sunday did a Jerusalem court rule in favor of four Jewish youths who had been arrested by the police last week for praying on the plateau and given a fifteen-day ban on entering the old city.

The court lifted the restraining order.

The uproar among Palestinians, but also in Jordan, was considerable, and Israeli authorities rushed to reassure the status quo would not be affected by the verdict - the Temple Mount is too big a powder keg.

The state appealed, and on Wednesday the Jerusalem District Court overturned the lower court's verdict.

The right of Jews to freedom of religion on the Temple Mount is "not absolute," the lead judge wrote, and other considerations such as maintaining public order may be given higher priority.

Regardless, the presence of thousands of Nationalist Jews in the Old City on Sunday -- police have capped attendance at 16,000 -- is likely to increase Palestinian fears about the status quo.

Especially since individuals, such as Itamar Ben Gvir, a member of the Knesset who reliably acts as a provocateur, have announced that they will visit the Temple Mount.

Even in Israel itself, the flag march is controversial due to such provocations.

Opposition Palestinian-Israeli MP Ayman Odeh called it a "march of racism and hatred," and his colleague Ahmad Tibi called the participants a "gang of fanatics who have the approval of the Bennett government."

But members of the government also criticized the march, and even the American ambassador asked for the route to be relocated.

According to the current status, it leads through the Damascus Gate, which has increasing symbolic power for Palestinians, to the Wailing Wall.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has so far stuck to the planned route.

His predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered a change at the last moment last year.

The attempt at partial de-escalation was ultimately in vain.

Israeli media reports that Bennett's advisers told him that any change in route would be taken as a sign of weakness towards the Palestinians.