Israeli nationalists march raises tensions in Jerusalem

On Tuesday, Israeli police in riot gear and on horseback cordoned off areas leading to the walled Old City's flashpoint Damascus Gate, clearing the area to Palestinians before the marchers arrived.

Dancing and singing "the people of Israel live," the crowd of mostly religious Jews, many carrying blue and white Israeli flags, filled the plaza in front of the gate, usually a popular social gathering spot for Palestinians.

Israel, which occupied East Jerusalem in a 1967 war and later annexed it in a move that has not won international recognition, regards the entire city as its capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state that would include the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas had warned of renewed hostilities over the march, testing the mettle of new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's administration of right-wing, centrist, left-wing and Arab parties and prompting Israel to beef up its deployment of the Iron Dome anti-missile system.

But as the marchers began to disperse after nightfall in Jerusalem, there was no sign of rocket fire from Gaza.

Several hours before the event started, however, Palestinians in Gaza launched incendiary balloons which the Israeli fire brigade said caused at least 20 blazes in fields in Israeli communities near the fenced border with the enclave.

Such incidents had stopped with the ceasefire that ended last month's hostilities, in which Gaza militants unleashed rocket barrages into Israel and Israel pounded the small, densely populated coastal enclave with air strikes.

Israeli media reports said Bennett's administration would order retaliation for the resumption of the balloon launches, though not necessarily immediately.