Source: DTN News / AFP (NSI News Source Info) JERUSALEM, Israel - May 12, 2010: Israel was on Wednesday celebrating the anniversary of the "unification" of Jerusalem, marking 43 years since it
captured mainly Arab east Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war.The Jerusalem Day festivities kicked off at sundown on Tuesday with an open-air concert by US funk band "Kool and the Gang" and continued through the night with prayers and gatherings to mark the anniversary.
Security was tight with thousands of police and security forces deployed across the city to ensure the festivities went off without a hitch.
"Several thousands of police and border police have been mobilised, with the deployment of forces particularly high in the Old City," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
Thousands of people, mostly nationalist-religious Jews, were expected to take part in an annual march through Jerusalem later Wednesday that culminates in the Old City at the Wailing Wall, one of the holiest sites in Judaism.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and other top officials were to attend an evening ceremony at Ammunition Hill where Israeli troops fought a fierce battle with Jordanian forces.
Tensions in and around Jerusalem have soared in past months over the deeply-controversial issue of Jewish construction in annexed east Jerusalem in a move which poses a constant threat to peace efforts.
Despite US assurances to the Palestinians that Israel would freeze certain settlement activity in the eastern sector for the next two years, top Israeli officials have denied the existence of any such commitment.
"There is no agreement about freezing building in east Jerusalem and normal life in Jerusalem will continue as in every other city in Israel," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told journalists during a visit to Tokyo.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat also insisted that there would be no halt to construction in the "united and undivided" Holy City.
"The municipal borders of Jerusalem are not negotiable and building will continue across all of the city under Israeli sovereignty," Barkat told army radio.
Construction in the eastern sector infuriates the Palestinians who want east Jerusalem, which includes the walled Old City and its holy sites, to be the capital of their promised state.
Israel marks Jerusalem Day in accordance with the Hebrew calendar.
It captured east Jerusalem on June 7, 1967, the third day of the 1967 Six-Day War, and unilaterally annexed the sector in a move not recognised by the international community.
In 1980, Israel passed a law declaring Jerusalem its "eternal and indivisible" capital.
Israeli human rights groups say the Holy City is sharply divided and that Palestinian residents suffer from discrimination.
The status of Jerusalem, along with ongoing Israeli settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land, are among the thorniest issues in Middle East peace efforts.
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