Otzma Yehudit chairman MK Itamar Ben Gvir will arrive on Thursday afternoon at 5:00 p.m. at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, after he was banned from marching with Israeli flags in the Old City.
Ben Gvir intends to obey the police instructions and will not bring hundreds of activists with him, but he intends to continue a fierce protest against the “failed Police Commissioner”, as he put it, "who failed in Lod and Ramla and today deprives MKs of the right to immunity and prevents them from hoisting the Israeli flag at a distance of 100 meters from the Light Rail."
On Wednesday, Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai decided to ban MK Ben Gvir and MK May Golan (Likud) from marching at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, claiming that "the Knesset members' march could go so far as to harm state security."
In response to the decision, MK Ben Gvir said that "this is the end of democracy. The Commissioner has failed to deal with the rioters in Lod, the south and the Temple Mount, and now, in an unprecedented decision, he is violating the immunity of Knesset members." Ben Gvir also said that he expects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reverse the decision.
On Tuesday night, the Political-Security Cabinet decided that the flag parade will take place next Tuesday in an outline to be agreed upon between the police and the organizers of the parade.
A statement at the conclusion of the Cabinet discussion said that Prime Minister Netanyahu saw the importance of reaching a broad agreement on the march and therefore turned to Defense Minister Benny Gantz in order to reach an agreement.