Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the traditional flag march on Jerusalem Day on Thursday, which is usually joined by tens of thousands of marchers, mostly from Israel’s national-religious community, will be allowed to pass through Jerusalem’s Old City’s Muslim Quarter.

“The flag march will continue as planned, as usual, on its route,” Netanyahu said during a meeting with his Likud Party.

Israel is expected to deploy more than 2,000 police officers to protect marchers and keep the peace during the march, which causes much tension every year. This year perhaps more than ever, due to the just-established ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad faction after five days of fighting and more than 1,500 rockets lobbed at Israel from the Gaza strip.

According to Ahmed Fouad, an academic specializing in Israeli affairs and a member of the Egyptian Council of Foreign Affairs, “The true test of the ceasefire’s stability lies in the flag march, which is expected to cause clashes if it passes through the Muslim Quarter.”

The Jerusalem march, in fact, has served as a pretext for conflict, as in 2021, when the Hamas terrorist group used it to launch over 4,000 rockets into Israel. Israel responded in what came to be an 11-day military campaign called Operation Guardian of the Walls.

Several Palestinian factions have already threatened that they will attack Israel on Jerusalem Day according to Arab media, which reported on Monday that the factions were threatening a new “powerful campaign.”

According to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar the factions opined that they were capable of starting a new campaign to “prevent the change of reality” at the Al-Aqsa mosque.

The Palestinian factions also said that they might start a campaign over Jerusalem that “would be more powerful, on a wider scale, use more firepower, and would not be limited to the Gaza front. They also emphasized their alertness regarding any development on the Temple Mount, and clarified that the issue of the flag parade in Jerusalem was not addressed in the recent ceasefire” according to reporting by i24news.

According to reporting by JNS, “Palestinian campaigns on social media platforms are now urging the thwarting of the flag parade. Clerics are disseminating videos calling for action against Jews marching in Jerusalem’s Old City, including demonstrations, protest rallies, and a procession from Damascus Gate to the Temple Mount featuring Palestinian flags are being advocated. They are also encouraging confrontations with Israeli soldiers at potential flashpoints.”

Meanwhile, Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah of Lebanon's Hezbollah organization, an Iranian proxy terrorist organization that has vowed to eradicate Israel, claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had, “Attacked Gaza in an attempt to escape the internal division [in Israel] and attend to his coalition's dissolution.”

Nasrallah also commended the leadership of Islamic Jihad and the various Palestinian factions:

“Like the other Palestinian resistance factions, the Islamic Jihad has the ability to find a replacement for any military or political leaders lost in the battlefield," Nasrallah said, mentioning the Israeli assassinations of a number of senior Islamic Jihad military commanders.

Nasrallah also expressed the terrorist group’s staunch support of the Palestinian factions.

“We are in constant contact with the leadership of the resistance in Gaza, and we will not hesitate to assist at any time that responsibility requires it," he added

Hezbollah is not necessarily making empty threats. In April, the Iranian proxy group opened an offensive against Israel, sending more than 30 rockets against Israel in the largest Hezbollah offensive against the Jewish state since 2006, most of which were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense systems.

Jerusalem Day in Israel marks the capture and annexation of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and is a celebration of that fact. The flag march is viewed by Palestinian factions, including Hamas, the terrorist ruler of Gaza, as a nationalist Jewish provocation, aimed at “Judaizing” the city.

This article originally appeared on All Israel News and is reposted with permission.