ISRAEL deployed more than 2,000 police today for a march by Jewish nationalists through the main Palestinian thoroughfare in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Authorities say that the beefed-up security was put in place to ensure the march passed without violence.

Shortly before the parade began, police reported only minor disturbances. Ten people were arrested when Israeli activists opposed to the march tried to block a West Bank highway used by settlers to reach Jerusalem. 

Police also broke up some scuffles and shouting matches between Jewish and Palestinian youths in the Old City.

Just ahead of the march, large groups of extremist Jewish teens walked throughout the Old City. Palestinian shops were either shuttered or empty.

Police decided to allow the thousands of marchers to go through the Old City’s Damascus Gate even after the increase in violence caused by the occupation forces heavy bombardment of the West Bank and Gaza last week.

While Israeli officials describe the march as a festive parade, it has in the past been marred by anti-Arab racist chants and violence towards local Palestinians by some of the marchers. 

Two years ago, it helped spark an 11-day war between Israel and Palestinian resistance fighters in Gaza. 

The Hamas resistance group has urged Palestinians to confront the parade this year.

The march marks Jerusalem Day, which commemorates Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 six-day war. 

Each year, thousands of Israeli nationalists participate in the march, waving blue and white Israeli flags and singing songs and anti-Arab slogans. 

The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as capital of their future state.

Israel’s national security minister, far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, has joined the march in past years. It was not known whether he would join this year, his first as a Cabinet minister.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said allowing the march to snake through the Palestinian areas of the Old City “will only lead to a rise in tension and could lead to an explosion.”

The parade comes just days after a ceasefire took effect ending five days of heavy attacks from the Israelis and retaliation led by the Islamic Jihad resistance group in Gaza.

Hamas stayed on the sidelines during the fighting, and Israel avoided attacking the group in an effort by both sides to contain the violence.

But if unrest erupts in Jerusalem, Hamas may well also enter the fray.